WHY I DON'T WATCH THE TODAY SHOW

Inadvertently, I caught a few minutes of Today this morning.

Although I had been a regular viewer for years, I gave up on the program long ago. When I turned on TV, I saw John McCain was being interviewed by Matt Lauer. Against my better judgment, I lingered there.

Lauer, in his whiny, annoying way, questioned McCain: On a scale of one to ten, one being a disaster, ten being a success, how are things going in Iraq?

McCain assessed things as a six. Lauer combatively interjected, pointing out that's a lot higher than most people would rate it. He went to cite figures like 60% of Americans think things are going badly in Iraq and 56% believe it was mistake. I don't know how McCain responded because I was so distracted by my disgust for Lauer's cheering against American efforts in Iraq.

Lauer pressed McCain to admit that, as predicted a couple of years ago, Iraq was Bush's Vietnam. McCain, to his credit, said that Iraq was no Vietnam.

Then, the discussion moved to the Bolton nomination. Again, Lauer framed his questions in a manner that was prompting McCain to bash Bolton and Bush. He said that the prospects of a Senate confirmation vote seemed pretty dim.

After that, a quick snippet of an interview with Michael Jackson's mother was aired--a Today EXCLUSIVE!!!!

Rita Cosby of MSNBC asked her if the trial revealed a side of her son that she hadn't known. Cosby brought up the porn magazines. Mrs. Jackson insisted that the allegations of Michael sharing such material with children were all lies. She chalked up the porn as Michael being like every other man.

There is no way I would ever, under any circumstances, consider Michael Jackson to be like "every other man."

Following that short tease, there was a brief segment of the Katie Couric Runaway Bride EXCLUSIVE!!!! Who cares about her? Since when does a woman that ran out on her fiancé and her family just days before her wedding, leaving them all suspecting there was foul play, deserve this sort of attention?

The answer would be some time since I stopped watching Today.