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We're starting to suspect that pitting the Today Show's Katie Couric against Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer is the new Terri Schiavo — and, if we're lucky, the phrase "morning ratings war" will replace "the war on terror." Next week's edition of New York takes a step in that direction, with an interesting little take-down of the perkiest cheerleader this side of Rockefeller Center:

...Next up [in the Today Show firings] was Tom Touchet, recruited from ABC, with experience at Good Morning America; he too lasted about two and a half years before being axed in April. Couric has publicly protested that she had almost nothing to do with the latest decision. ( I wish I were that powerful and calling the shots, she told USA Today. It s just not the case, but for whatever reason people ascribe to me power that I don t really have and don t exert. ) But she left fingerprints. On the Tuesday that Touchet was fired by Neal Shapiro, the producer went back to his office after getting the news and then received a call from Couric. She was on the line to suggest a story for the next day relating to coverage of the new pope. When Touchet explained that he had been let go and wouldn t be producing the show, Couric blurted out, That wasn t supposed to happen until Friday. (Touchet, who didn t return calls, repeated her comment immediately to other staffers standing around his office at the time and subsequently told his friends that Couric didn t even try to fake the usual so-sorry-wish-you-well niceties; instead she abruptly ended the call.) When Lauer organized a good-bye dinner for Touchet and senior staffers, no one was surprised that Couric was not there.

Back to you, Al! [Cue Al Roker's eye-rolling, much like he did this morning when Couric said, on camera, that Roker and fellow African-American co-host Lester Holt (in for Lauer) must know a lot about self-tanning.]