(Speaking for myself only)

I am of the opinion that Brian Williams is the most ridiculous person on television. I am also of the opinion that Howie Kurtz is the most ridiculous person writing in a major newspaper (yes, more so than MoDo.) So certainly I enjoyed Bob Somerby's skewering of both. Here is a snippet:

KURTZ (page 265): If Gibson managed to beat him, so be it. Charlie was a newsman’s newsman, Williams felt, an older version of himself. There was no shame in losing to Charlie. But he felt very differently about Katie Couric.

It wasn’t that Williams was jealous of her fame, her huge salary, of the enormous wave of publicity surrounding her ascension. But Williams and others at NBC believed that Katie was in something of a bubble, living a wealthy celebrity lifestyle that set her apart from her viewers.

What was central to Williams’ conception of himself was that he was the down-to-earth journalist, the NASCAR fan, the onetime volunteer fireman, the guy who shopped at Price Club and watched American Idol. . . . Brian Williams was convinced that, when it came to news, people would see who eats it, sleeps it, and breathes it.

And they were also going to see who knew how to pause between items! At any rate, it’s fairly clear that, at this high level, the high-strung artists of TV news can develop understandable sets of attitudes—the types of attitudes which, seen somewhere else, might be mistaken for excessive self-regard . . .

Read the whole thing. Hilarious.