Good news for Katie Couric: the ongoing psychodrama at MSNBC has caused people to forget entirely that she was widely considered a unhappy failure as the anchor of the CBS evening news. Remember how she hated the job, and the criticism, and was going to quit after the elections and take over for Larry King or something? That was a long time ago, and the spectacle of Chris Matthews versus Keith Olbermann versus Joe Scarborough versus NBC News brass versus viewers has basically taken all the negative attention off of poor Katie. As a result, now it is time for people to decide they like her again! First up, Times media person David Carr. David Carr got in trouble for being all sexist about Katie last time he wrote about her, and in this piece he once again reminds everyone that she is "perky" (almost!) and "America's Sweetheart" (almost!). But he also says: "Ms. Couric is a highly skilled interviewer, and people tend to tell her stuff." Of course CBS is still in third place and the fact that MSNBC has sucked all the coverage away from Katie is good, sort of, but also means that no one is talking about Katie and CBS. So she can do all the surprisingly good work in the world, but it won't attract the attention of a Chris Matthews meltdown on a third-place cable network. In other words, we figure she's enjoying herself as anchor for the first time since she started, mostly because she's still going to quit soon, so why not have fun. (Of course she still needs to make sure she's getting that payday before she hands the reigns back to Bob Scheiffer.) [Photo: HuffPo]