New York Times: "Can the network nightly news anchor evolve from the Daddy chair to the Mommy chair? Will Americans ever trust a petite, pretty woman in jewel tones to deliver the news as much as they trusted tall men with dark suits and deep voices, like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw? Can high heels match the venerable trench coat?
The network news anchor career path is laden with the same sort of gender tripwires as the one for the presidency. Who do we want to lead us through a crisis? 'Does Mommy know best?' a longtime TV industry analyst mused. 'If there's a gigantically frightening news event, people want to turn on the TV and see someone guiding them through it. Will they be comfortable with Elizabeth Vargas or even Katie Couric?' Last summer, when ABC needed a replacement for Peter Jennings, I asked a top network executive whether the 43-year-old Ms. Vargas had a shot to be the first woman to get a solo network anchor gig. Shouldn't that barrier have been broken long ago? I mean, women can read off a teleprompter as well as men. At first he sounded optimistic: she is not a news division heavyweight, but she is a lovely, competent Hispanic woman, which could mean a more diverse audience. And she might draw in younger viewers, instead of the dinosaur evening news demographic that mostly attracts sponsors like Viagra and Depends. Within 30 seconds, though, the executive got jittery. 'I know this is going to sound really sexist,' he admitted with breathtaking candor, 'but if there were another 9/11, I'm not sure if she has the gravitas to hold that anchor chair. ... Maybe it's not even sex. Maybe it's age. I just think we'd need someone with a little gray in their hair.' (The network pushed Ms. Vargas out of the anchor seat in favor of Charlie Gibson when terrorists bombed London twice in July 2005, even though his day job was doing fluff on 'Good Morning America.')"

Historians: Bush the Worst President Ever? C'mon! | The Huffington Post: "Well, the historians have gone and done it. Risking the creation of a White House Commission on Historical Quality to refute their findings with real science, an overwhelming 338 of 415 historians polled by George Mason University said Friday that George W. Bush is failing as a president. And fifty of them rated Bush as the worst president ever, ranking him above (below?) any other past president -- even those you've never heard of who were also really awful.

Why do these misguided, obviously-socialist, ivy-smoking, and (of course) American-hating intellectuals feel that Bush isn't doing his best?

Well, they look at the record ...

# He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;

# He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;

# He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;

# He has repeatedly 'misled,' to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;

# He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (
Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);

# He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;

# He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;

# He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president."