Formerly the perky co-host of Today and much less perky anchor of the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric is an omnipresent fixture on news television.

If you wanted to hear Katie Couric say "oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit," Harry Shearer has the video for you. With the cameras sending live feed directly to Shearer's magic satellite, you are there as Katie preps for her New Hampshire primary election night coverage, bitches about the mic, repeatedly adjusts her top, announces the death of America's mayor, and says, of John McCain's wife, "she looks like a husky." Watch the whole clip below and fall in love with Katie all over again. [MyDamnChannel]

Annnnd now they just laid off the guy at CBS Interactive who runs Katie Couric's blog. Yikes!

Oooh, it looks like Katie Couric has scored an interview with Hillary Clinton for the evening news! We just really really hope that this picture, up on the Drudge Report where the story is being reported, isn't a still from some home movie Couric's got her hands on. Do. Not. Want.

This week's New York brings Joe Hagan's second story this year about a wretched CBS News anchor, his first being that interminable cover piece on Katie Couric this summer. Today's slightly less endless article chronicles Hagan's talks with Dan Rather. Hagan doesn't uncover anything you don't already know about Rather's legal dispute with CBS or the documents scandal that started it all. He does, however, paint Rather as an around-the-bend loony toon, one of those old guys who madly scribbles notes to himself while muttering at the pigeons from his park bench.

You've heard the rumors and now they're confirmed: Katie Couric is a bitch after all. On the other hand, bitch is also hilarious. In this My Damn Channel video, discovered by the Daily News, Couric makes a coitus interruptus joke, says "Bro, what up?" and makes fun of Dan Rather. Oooh, she fierce! This is on the same day CBS filed a motion to have Rather's $70 million lawsuit dismissed. Talk about comedic timing!

While watching CBS anchor Katie Couric interview ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame on last night's '60 Minutes,' we couldn't help but notice a few things. Couric is way harsher on chicks than on dudes. Plame looks an awful lot like 'Sideways' star Virginia Madsen! Couric does not like being out-effervescenced on camera. Plame very clearly wants to be taken seriously, and should be. And yet. She does her first major television interview in four years wearing hiphuggers and dangly earrings. Before you jump all over us: This is the same as a man conducting an interview in shorts.

In a weird adapted excerpt from his book on T.V. news that apparently comes out tomorrow, Washington Post nosepicker-columnist and CNN blatherer Howie Kurtz lets us know that the liberal T.V. painted the Iraq war as a bloody place where people get blown up and bad things happen! That is so crazy! How could they?! (Is the rest of his book so ludicrous?)

The New York Post has really taken Ed Klein's talking points from his Katie Couric bio to heart: "Katie Couric has gone from a cougar to a dove. The 'CBS Evening News' anchor with a penchant for dating younger men has come out criticizing the war in Iraq—and her predecessor, Dan Rather." See? She's a nutty hussy! After her husband died, she dated more than one person! So she can't possibly have any of these wildly radical opinions like "people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale for this war." Someone should totally dunk that communist traitor witch and see if she floats!

"I'm going braless," Huffpo's Rachel Sklar said in the cab on the way to the Sheraton. She was tucking herself into a sleek black dress. "Women sweat there!" When she had first invited me to the 28th News and Documentary Emmy Awards, this wasn't what I had in mind: learning the finer points of a lady's thermoregulation sitting in UN-caused traffic jam in Midtown. I was dreaming of Russert, Blitzer, Koppel, Wallace, Stewart, Soledad—Brian Williams! Christmas for the newscasters! Get behind me, Santa!

Katie Couric's trip to Iraq resulted in a new record low in the ratings race for "CBS Evening News." Still, there's an upside: "If CBS' hiring of Katie Couric was all about damaging the NBC Today show (rather than boosting the CBS Evening News) it's working. Today 'has lost about 360,000 viewers' in the past year, including 12% of women aged 25-54." [Kausfiles]

Now that Hamptons season is nearly over, Katie Couric is ready to leave for Iraq on a trip that's all about the journalism. You will take her so seriously. You will tune in every night! She is not fluffy, she is totally surrounded by serious things like people getting arms blown off every hour! Variety notes that "CBS News has an able correspondent in Iraq, Lara Logan, whom it has worked to elevate in stature over the past few years, raising the question of why take the risk of sending a high-value target such as Couric, a single mother of two." That is true. Though also we think that when Brian Williams went to Iraq they probably didn't mention that he and his lovely wife Jane have two kids, so maybe there is something to this whole sexism thing. Anyway, come back in at least two pieces, Katie! The benefit circuit and your massive staff and your publicists depend on you!

ABC "World News" anchor Charlie Gibson wasn't interested in funning around with T.V. comedian Stephen Colbert and his fake campaign against "wrist violence," even though other big T.V. anchors did. HuffPo blogger Rachel Sklar talks to the Times about going on the Colbert show: "It's a test. If you play along, you're funny and cool, and if you don't, you're stiff and boring. How people like Brian Williams and Katie Couric react to him are an indication of what they are really like—their instinctive reactions are measures of their good humor and authenticity and humanity." That is SICK. It's the worst, most antijournalism, most cult-of-personalityish, upside-down end-of-days take on what newsreaders, even in their current reduced state, should be that we've heard in ages. Also: Those appearances exhibit Katie Couric's authenticity? Yeah. No. Maybe the opposite of authenticity actually.

Andy Rooney kinda realizes that there's something slightly off-putting about calling all ballplayers "Rodriguez," just because you're an old white guy who feels uncomfortable about the changing demographics of both sports and our nation. More important: What horrible invective is Andy whispering to Katie Couric in this picture to make her look so horrified? [NYT]

Some commenters are just so gosh-darn helpful in relaying the kind of information that we absolutely need to know to, as they say, move the story forward, that they deserve an award: the Helpful Critter award. Oh, and while we're at it, we've decided to execute people whose comments this week make them decidedly Unhelpful Critters. Go back from whence you came!

Next week sees the release of Edward Klein's "Katie: The Real Story" (Crown), a biography of "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric. Klein's previous biography was the Hillary Clinton hatchet job "The Truth About Hillary Is That She Eats Box," and the Couric book follows the same pattern: it's full of rumor, innuendo, and scurrilous information from anonymous sources. Since the stuff about Katie being a bitch to work for has already been all over the papers, let's just jump to the sex parts! Here, the newly-installed anchorwoman meets a much younger man and damages feminism forever.

• Among the shocking revelations from the lips of tragic former child star Lindsay Lohan's ex-bodyguard: "Dina often 'let her do whatever she wanted, just to keep her happy and working . . . [At her 16th birthday party] Lindsay drank whatever she wanted - I saw her drinking beer and mixed drinks with my own eyes [without Dina's intervention].'" Whoever would have guessed that such a thing was possible. [Page Six]
  

Katie Couric wants you to remember that Lindsay Lohan is suffering from a serious illness: addiction. "Her biochemical state is exacerbated by the constant media attention.... This young woman's life is on the line, and that's not entertainment." It's compassionate yet direct insights like these that keep those 5 to 6 million people tuning in to Katie each night. [CBS]

Even with crappy ratings, the advertisers for pharmaceutical products, packaged goods and high-end autos still believe in CBS News anchor Katie Couric. [Mediaweek]

What you need to know about that interminable Katie Couric profile in this week's New York: Katie has had some second thoughts about taking the job, Katie thinks people are resistant to change, Katie understand the schadenfreude that everyone feels about her poor ratings, Katie's upset about CBS News' parsimonious budget (while fellow newsers blame the paltry amount of funding on the fact that most of the money is going to Katie), the 2008 election will make or break Katie's anchor career. Also, she once beat a news editor to death with a tire iron because he put the word "sputum" in her broadcast? One more thing: New York magazine will let Joe Hagan write as many words as he wants. And that's the way it is.