CBS - COURIC VISITS FUTURE HOME AT CBS

Bob Schieffer told an audience at Drew University in Madison, NJ Wednesday night that he had been part of a "welcome wagon" to greet Katie Couric when she arrived at CBS News headquarters for the first time earlier in the day. Schieffer, who will be handing over the reins of the CBS Evening News to Couric in September, told the audience that she will be "a perfect fit" at CBS. As for reports that he is considering an offer to broadcast two commentaries a week on the newscast, Schieffer said that he now is considering doing one. "I'm not sure I have that much to say," he said. According to the Morris County Daily Record, Schieffer, who was generally regarded as politically neutral by many conservative critics of his predecessor, Dan Rather, spent much of his address criticizing the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq. "I'm very pessimistic about this thing right now," he remarked at one point. At another, he predicted that Donald Rumsfeld's days as Secretary of Defense are numbered.

21/04/2006