Wonder why Olympic-caliber gymnasts weigh 85 pounds, look prepubescent, and lead to accusations of age cheating? Because otherwise, we'd get this:

CONTINUED »

Yesterday, the Today show tried bringing us Chinese fashions. That was … bizarre.

This morning, the show's American cast tried introducing us to the Chinese delicacy of Peking duck. It was, to put it nicely, embarrassing.

With the English-speaking manager from a hotel there that supposedly serves the best duck in the city, Meredith Vieira educates viewers on local cuisine.

"It dates back 600 years, right?" asks Vieira.

"Uh, actually," she's told, "the duck was roasted in China since more than 1,000 years ago. It was first prepared for Chinese emperor."

"Nowadays," continues the manager, "it became the cornerstone … of Chinese cuisine."

"Why is that?" asks Vieira. Uhhhh. "Because it tastes good?"

That's when Matt Lauer gets his turn at asking stupid questions.

Put Bob Costas back on.

On tomorrow's Today (too early for brain to comprehend!), Michelle and Barack Obama will sit down with Meredith Vieira. Here is why that is a stupid, stupid idea:

CONTINUED »

While Good Morning America scored a sit down with Katie Holmes on Monday, Diane Sawyer's refusal to ask any questions about, um, SCIENTOLOGY, makes its softball interview look like a steaming pile of PR-friendly crap next to Today anchor Meredith Vieira's chat this morning with Tom Cruise unauthorized biographer Andrew Morton.

While GMA executive producer Jim Murphy claims there was no contract in place that kept them from asking the hard questions in exchange for access to Holmes, few believe their story. (For his part, Murphy claims it was he who ended the interview early, angering Sawyer who didn't get a chance to get to the tough Qs. Take one for the team!)

Morton's book – which isn't being published in England, Australia, and New Zealand because of stringent libel laws – received the expected level of criticism from the Church of Scientology. It also received a skeptic's view from Meredith, who challenged Morton's claims that Cruise is the "de facto" second-in-command, that daughter Suri is the spawn of L. Ron Hubbard, or that Tom Cruise is "dangerous" (a statement he backtracked on in the interview). What's this? Not accepting someone's statements at face value! Tres nouveau!

After the jump, the full video of Tom Cruise's Scientology video that got some of this buzz going.

CONTINUED »

In this evocative sit-down with Jake Gyllenhaal, Meredith Vieira, the veteran journo (and former View cohost) reminds us all of the on-air savvy, eloquence and reporting expertise that recently enabled her to rocket past Katie Couric on Forbes‘ annual ranking of the World’s Most Powerful Women.

MV: Talk about movies with a heart: Brokeback Mountain. Did you have any idea when you were making that what you were sitting on, so to speak? So to speak - I probably shouldn’t use that term, actually. I apologize.

JG: Wow! Uh -

MV: You make this movie and - wow - I’m sorry…

JG: Very well put, Meredith.

Our thoughts exactly, Jake.

Despite certain anchors (ahem, Katie Couric) on certain other networks who recently ventured to Iraq as part of a certain ill-fated publicity stunt, Meredith Vieira swears she won't be packing her bags and hopping a plane to Baghdad anytime soon. "I'm not going to go because somebody tells me I have to for the sake of appearances. I think that's crazy," she avows to (the NBC-owned) Access Hollywood. When asked for comment, Vieira's Today co-anchor, Ann Curry replied, "Sounds great. What time do I leave?"

Congratulations on not screwing up the Today Show’s rating streak!

The reviews are in on the superfluous fourth hour of the day show, and NY Newsday's Verne Gay isn't pulling any punches.

The Fourth Hour is utter glop, with no reason for being, no purpose, no intelligence, no thought, no energy, and no originality. Remember 'Later Today,' the third hour at the turn of the century that derailed or sidelined a whole bunch of careers? That was actually better.

And don't even get him started on how he feels about the first three hours! Meanwhile, in other completely unrelated news, Today's ratings have dropped 6.2% since Meredith Vieira's arrival. Possibly due to the fact that Vieira is, admittedly, "not really an early-morning person," possibly due to the fact that the show is unintellectual glop, definitely due to the fact that it's lost its (i.e. Katie Couric's) legs.

Reports the Detroit Free Press:

Star reports (quoting unidentified sources and unnamed friends) that Vieira already wants to jump ship. "Meredith told me she's already planning her exit strategy so she can leave Today with her dignity intact," Star quotes a pal. "For her, it's been a noble experiment that hasn't worked as well as she had hoped."

When reached for comment, a beleaguered Katie Couric (the often maligned anchor of CBS' third place Evening News broadcast and the subject of a scandalous unauthorized bio) sarcastically replied, "Yeah, Meredith. This must have been a really difficult year. For you."

It's been almost twelve months since Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira joined CBS and NBC respectively, which means it's time for their one-year evaluations!

But who will weigh in on Katie's performance? Marketwatch's thrice-weekly columnist Jon Friedman has the answer!

"Since Couric generated more heat than Vieira in the past year, she'll get the lion's share of scrutiny from the usual suspects: critics, pundits, bloggers, journalism-school professors, retired network executives and former anchors."

And, of course, from the self-proclaimed media critic whom CJR has pointedly nicknamed "The Man Who Knew Too Little And Wrote Too Much."

One million dollars is what Paris Hilton is expected to pocket when she sits down with the Today show for her first post-prison interview. (What a difference the real thing makes.)

She'll chat with Meredith Vieira almost as soon as she gets out, says the Post, spurning the good graces of ABC which has seen Barbara Walters spewing incessantly about the jailbird's positive attributes.

Meanwhile, as Brian Montopoli notes, this was NBC News VP Bill Wheatley talking to the NYT in 2003: "We don't want there to be confusion on this overall policy: that we don't pay for interviews."

And neither do the tabloids, natch.

• Shockingly, it turns out that publishing Princess Diana's "death picture" is still rather taboo. On the other hand, we'll always have this.

• Besides, what would Tina Brown think?

• Women who read fashion and beauty magazines have a lot of money. Or at least their husbands do!

• Page Six perpetuates rumors that Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira are being demoted. Cue the obligatory denials!

• Slate reports on the Battle of the Fonts: 'Helvetica is for mediocre hacks,' boast fanatical Courier devotees.

• Breaking: Celebrities sometimes model jewelry! Experts already calling this a brilliant foray into cross-promotional propaganda. WWD has the scoop!

Anyone up for a quick stroll down Memory Lane? Because the news of Rosie's sudden impending departure from The View has us feeling all nostalgic, and inspired to take a look back at the show's long, sordid history, and admire how much the program has evolved since it first launched sometime in the mid/late 1990's.

And suddenly, we're flashing back to 1997, a time when people were custom-building bomb shelters in preparation for Y2K, our high school boyfriend kept on pressuring us to "just do it already," and bimbo/trailblazer Debbie Matenopoulos was paving the way for Elisabeth Hasselbeck to take her place as "the blond one who's always wrong."

A time when Barbara Walters was actually sort of in charge, Star Jones was all morbidly obese and "I'm a lawyer," Katie Couric was still sitting pretty at the Today Show, no one had even heard of Meredith Vieira, and Joy Behar actually got some occasional air-time, which she generally wasted by shrilly reminding us how hilarious she's not.

Sigh.

CONTINUED »

• Anna Nicole Smith under fire for exploiting pics of her baby daughter; a defiant TomKat and Brangelina replied, "Well, at least we never had sex with a really, really old guy."

• Britney Spears reaffirmed her commitment to motherhood last weekend, shagging seaman Isaac Cohen in the "Hugh Hefner suite" of The Palms Vegas hotel.

• Donald Trump, evidently a Jossip reader, finds a reason to hate Condi Rice that has absolutely nothing to do with her unwillingness to reproduce.

• Someone other than Paris, Lindsay or Nicole has an eating disorder?? Send in your guesses for the "saccaharine L.A. starlet" so we don't have to speculate for you.

• If Today Show viewers aren't watching Meredith Vieira, and they're not watching Katie Couric, then what are they doing? **shudders** Reading?

While Meredith Vieira hasn't exactly brought a new audience to the Today show, we'll agree that she has succeeding in staying the course — and keeping ratings steady at about 5.8 million viewers. While Rosie O'Donnell flips her shit on The View and Katie Couric watches her news broadcast's ratings slide further than they were a year ago, Meredith is staying afloat. With a fruity umbrella drink in one hand and the SPF in the other.

"It has been too smooth," said Jim Bell, "Today" executive producer. "It has been too good. As great a story as it has been for us, it has just been seamless and that may be why it hasn't drawn as much attention."

Also, Meredith Vieira doesn't call Kelly Ripa a homophobe and out Clay Aiken.