"Journalist" and War Criminal

(Note: I just updated this post from March 2014: I had misidentified Katie Couric, formerly of the Today Show, for Savannah Guthrie.  Oops, and thx to Batocchio!)

[image credit Huffington Post]

I am in the habit of watching the Today Show in the morning, a habit that dates back to 1974 when the bride and I first moved to Franklin County, PA, in the heart of the Cumberland Valley (the northern extension of Virginia's famed Shenandoah Valley).

See, in 1974 we could not afford cable (even if it was available, which it wasn't out in the country), so we relied on what broadcast stations we could receive over the air using rabbit ears.  Nearby Hagerstown, MD, boasted an NBC affiliate station, thus by default NBC became our network of choice.

So...back to the Today Show and the image from the 2014 Super Bowl above: I know it's much more a feel-good social program rather than hard news, but still.  To purport to be a journalist and to tweet a photo of yourself giddily grinning with a war criminal, crosses the line.

Can you now imagine a real interview by Ms. Guthrie Ms. Couric of former vice-president Cheney that would include hard-hitting, probing, deeply uncomfortable questions, taking Cheney to task for the debacle of the war in Iraq?  How about torture?  Me either.

Ms. Couric should be ashamed of herself.  In socializing with the news subjects with whom she may be journalistically interacting in the future, she blurs the line of separation and objectivity that should be there.  It's kinda like the video that gained widespread attention s couple years back of David Gregory of NBC News dancing with Republican strategist Karl Rove.