I came to despise Katie Couric because she was a Bush shill. Examples of her going out of her way to criticize Democrats and try to prop up Dubya are well documented on this site and others.

This morning, Meredith Vieira may have outdone Couric.

She asked Chris Matthews the single most idiotic question I have ever heard. Period.

Speaking of the troop surge in Iraq, Matthews made the point that the November election was a referendum on the war and that voters of all stripes rejected it. “It seems like (the surge is) coming and I must say it runs completely against American public opinion,” said Matthews. “I expect it will be treated the way Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia was reacted to. The American people aren’t going to like it.”

Meredith Vieira replied, “Well, the American people, when they went to the polls in November, said they wanted a change. So I’m President Bush and I’m sitting in the White House. For a year, I’ve been listening to my Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, and my key commander on the ground in Iraq, Casey, say to me that we should begin the gradual withdrawal of troops and beef up Iraqi security. That didn’t work. So you want a change? I’m giving you a change.”

What the hell was that? Seriously. Somebody tell me. What is Vieira asking here and why?

Allow me to attempt to paraphrase. Matthews says that the war is unpopular and the increase in troop numbers is going to be unpopular and of great significance. Vieira asks, “Well, if the American people wanted a change… more of the same… isn’t that a change?”

I’m still at a total loss. Of course the American electorate did not throw the Republicans out because they want more troops in Iraq.

Is this just a lousy attempt to deliver a very lame White House talking point? Are these segments heavily scripted? If so… by whom? Is this simply another example of defense contractor General Electric, which owns NBC, trying to tell us that war is good?

It might help if you watch the video. Go here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12065856 / and click on “Matthews discusses Saddam hanging.” They talk about the surge first.

Aside from the content of the things she used to say, one thing that bothered me about Couric was that she seemed to relish those opportunities to back Bush. She once nearly put her hand over Jim Cramer’s mouth when he refused to go down the path she was leading him and say that good economic news would turn Bush’s poll numbers around. Here, Vieira seems to recite this paragraph pretty quickly. My impression is that she had to read it – so she did it quickly. Katie would have done it more slowly and with more relish.

Perhaps I am completely off base. Perhaps it was a perfectly good journalistic question and Vieira was just “trying to present both sides.” Maybe I’m the idiot.

But this kind of thing bugs the crap out of me.