The New York Times takedown of Katie Couric (here and here) seems to be the occasion for more reevaluation of the “Clinton-loving perkette” of the early morning:


“We’ve all watched as Katie has grown richer, smugger, and more chic,” writes Myrna Blyth. “But for years, Today’s chipmunk-cheeked, Clinton-loving perkette sold women, the primary audience for the morning show’s m’lange of a little news and a lot of fluffy features, the notion that she is just like them: a harried working mom.


“In her ’I’m just like you’ phase Katie used to give speeches to adoring audiences describing a typical day in her life. She would tell them, for example, that she was on the phone setting up a play-date for one of her daughters like an ordinary mom, when a staffer beeped her to tell her President Carter was on the line. ’President Carter who just won the Nobel Prize? Okay, put him on.’…”


But it’s not just the cloying Katie factor that Blyth sees as the root of the growing disenchantment:


“[W]hat I think has contributed to Katie’s major loss of appeal is that millions of women have finally caught onto the liberal bias in much of her reporting. Katie, like many women in media, just assumed that all women — just because they were women — agreed with them about issues such as gun control and abortion. She has always been at her sharpest, interviewing those with conservative points of view while throwing softballs at her political favorites. And Katie’s attitudes and opinions did have considerable influence with women. That’s because for years she has come into millions of women’s homes on a daily basis, seemingly so concerned about their needs, able to both dish diets and criticize the government’s policy in Iraq, swoon over celebrities and swoon over Hillary.”