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Evening News Race Gets Competitive: Mandroid Does Mesopotamia



Indestructable "Mandroid" -- dig that inscutable Senatorial hair -- Brian Williams ups the ante in his Evening News barbed wire cage match against "The Magnificent One" Charlie Gibson. Not only did he get a new valet, Alexandra "Baby Doll" Wallace, in his corner, but he is going to Iraq, according to Bill Carter of the Gray Lady:

"The NBC News anchor Brian Williams arrived in Baghdad yesterday, the first network news anchor to travel to Baghdad since Bob Woodruff, who was then the co-anchor of ABC News, was severely injured by a roadside bomb in January 2006. Mr. Williams will start what is planned to be a week of reporting and anchoring NBC’s evening newscast from Iraq.

"The timing, he said, related to the Bush administration’s deciding to send in more American troops. 'The recent change in the tempo of the violence and the decision to send more U.S. troops were both major factors in my decision,' Mr. Williams wrote in his blog.

"His trip also comes one week after the NBC 'Nightly News' fell behind ABC in a monthlong ratings comparison for the first time in 11 years. But Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview that the first conversations about this trip took place late last year."

Oh nononono; Heaven forfend! We would never, ever, ever entertain the possibility that crass ratings were factored into the overall equation of Bri-guy adrift in Mesopotamia immediately following what can only be properly construed as a therapeutic media ass whuppin'.

Would we?