Today’s big media personality news comes from the Daily Mail, so you get the whole story right up top in the headline. And what a headline. It shouts, “‘Subtlety is not her middle name.’ Norah O’Donnell is trying to seize the CBS Evening News anchor job from Jeff Glor, as staffers blast her ‘giant ego’ and climate of fear she creates at This Morning.”
Nothing shocking, really. Apparently O’Donnell is ambitious, ruthless, loathed, and a horrible person to work for. It takes a kind of ruthless ambition to reach the top of the infotainment industry, but it’s how you treat your coworkers and underlings that reveals your true character. So maybe the only real news in the Daily Mail’s story is the juicy details — and the DM excels at getting the juicy details! — you probably could have guessed at, if you’ve had to watch her as long as I’ve had to.
Today’s report brings back a memory from 2009 (IIRC) when I was doing a weekly roundup of the Sunday morning talking-heads shows for PJTV. O’Donnell was doing an interview with new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and there was one brief exchange which I found so revealing about the both of them, that it’s stuck in my head all these years.
In one of her questions, O’Donnell parroted a line — that line about “fundamentally transforming” America which the press had largely buried in the days before the 2008 election — straight from Barack Obama. She asked Clinton something like, “As Secretary of State, how are you going to pursue the fundamental transformation this country requires?” And she sounded quite earnest about it, too. Which, OK, nice to know you aren’t bringing any America-hating biases with you to the news desk, lady.
And then there was Clinton’s immediate response, which was a loud, possibly nervous cackle, and obvious shock on her face. To me, that said, “You can’t say that out loud, you innocent young thing! You’ll give the game away!” And then Clinton did the Deflection Dance away from O’Donnell’s well-meant question. Maybe since that moment, O’Donnell has learned to hide her biases better, although given the state of the news industry — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American Left — you might wonder why she’d bother.
Maybe you think I read too much into that brief exchange. But my eyes and ears are pretty sure about what went on that morning: An all-too-revealing moment between O’Donnell, the not-at-all-unbiased “journalist,” and SecState Clinton, who hid her radicalism in plain sight.
O’Donnell would be a great fit at the CBS anchor desk once occupied by lying leftist Walter Cronkite, I fear.
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