Katie, Katie

After busting her behind in Iraq, Katie Couric hit the ratings basement again last week, drawing 5.5 million viewers, well behind Charlie Gibson on ABC, who drew 7.8 million.

CBS News President Sean McManus seems to be resigned to it all, according to the AP:

"We never expected it to do well in the ratings and it didn't," McManus said. "We knew that this was a long-term commitment to Katie and the show and we really felt it was important to establish our reporting there."

As if Lara Logan hadn't done that already, or somehow was incapable of doing so.

I feel for the CBS newsroom employees. The week in Iraq drew generally kind reviews, and a bunch of people slaved to pull it off, but people weren't watching -- or not enough people, we should say. Remember this: even on Katie's worst night, she's still beating Bill O'Reilly's numbers.

So why aren't people tuning in to Katie? My reasons remain unchanged from my previous analysis about her talents being misappropriated. I also maintain bailing out on her at this point would be a catastrophic mistake, one with no reward whatsoever except to smirking media critics, bash-bloggers and Katie-haters.

But the suits at Black Rock have to be shaking their heads and kneading their fingers. A light-news approach bombed. A hard-news expedition to Iraq tanked. What in the heck is it gonna take for us to get within a comfortable distance of Brian Williams and Gibson?

Time, perhaps. I have heard the argument that Dan Rather spent more than two decades wrecking CBS News. But I'm sure the CBS suits don't want to wait two decades more.