The TV Zone

I've received a couple of calls and emails on the presumably cozy relationship between the new chief of "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" and the Clinton campaign, and since two calls and emails pretty much signals a trend in my business, it's time to address those. The calls are of the outraged variety: Why haven't I pointed out that Rick Kaplan is friends with Bill Clinton? Do I have an agenda by not
making this observation immediately (as though an accurate lede would have been, "Rick Kaplan, a close personal friend of Bill Clinton, was named executive producer of the 'Evening News...', or "Bill Clinton, the former president, has a friend now running 'The Evening News...'") So here's my answer: I almost never mention that Ted Koppel was once friends with Henry Kissinger (and presumably still is). Or that former ABC News president, Roone Arledge, was a close friend of various Kennedys. I hardly even bother to point out anymore that former CBS News president David Burke once even worked for Ted Kennedy. I almost never get around to the fact that Brit Hume has had a long and friendly relationship with the Bush family, or that Dorrance Smith, who once ran "Nightline," was a family friend too, and even went to work for George I and II.

I also find it kind of odd to point out that Dan Rather is a long-time pal of Donald Rumsfeld's; as Dan might put it, you can check it out and put the Texas star of approval on that fact.

To the best of my knowledge, these friendships didn't, don't and never have compromised their professionalism (although Geraldo and Roone once got in a famous fight over Kennedy, but that's another story from long ago and far away.) Politicians and TV types have relationships - that's a fact usually born of mutual need as opposed to mutual admiration.

And to notice that someone is a friend of Bill - a FOB - also invites derision. Isn't everyone a FOB? The guy collects friends like Nabokov collected butterflies or Audubon birds. Kaplan is one of many who jumped in and out of the Lincoln Bedroom over those years. Does that make them all make Clintonistas?

Here's the broader point, the only point that matters: Kaplan is there to save "Evening News." He's there to add viewers, to reverse the stigma that this is a loser, to burnish Couric's rep, to even get around to reporting major events of the day. He is not there to help Hillary - and if he is, that would be one of the cleverest campaign gambits of recent memory and one destined to fail miserably.

And I’m certain Kaplan realizes one as opposed to two tyrannical bosses is more than enough.

Jeez: He even looks like Bill. Sort of.