Candi Crowley. Up to her usual stunts, but sadly representative of her profession.

She gets a lengthy one-on-one interview w/ Kerry--transcript here--and her first question is all about her own little dramatic moment. She's all over it with the histrionics: hand gestures, surging and plumeting eyebrows, voice inflection all over the map:

We're on the stage where you just gave an economic speech. I want to bring it down to one person. A middle-aged guy lives in Wisconsin. He doesn't have a job. John Kerry becomes president in January. His life changes February, March, April?

I shudder rewatching it, her little theatre is so self-involved--it's the artsiness of interview, it's all about her performance--but I'm even more troubled by the concept. His life changes? In three months? That's her time horizon? That's what presidents are supposed to do? Sweep in and save the lives of the downtrodden overnight, or at least overmonth? President as Red Cross volunteer?

Perhaps if he were running for the presidency of the Red Cross, but Liddy Dole gave up that job to run for president of the U.S. last time. And never made it to the primaries.

Seriously, though. THis is her conception of the role of a president?

Foolishly, he goes for the bait.

Well, his life will change very quickly providing Congress responds. There are immediate things that I can do with respect to trade policy, immediate things I can do in the regulatory system that will help. But the most important thing is to lower the cost of health care and to raise incomes for middle class Americans, put in place a $4,000 tuition tax credit, get a $1,000 into the pocket of Americans by lowering their health care premiums.

"But can you get him a job?" she responds.

Ugh.

Luckily, he figures it out:

Well, I -- directly, day one? No. I'm not going to pretend that I can do that on day one. But what I can do is put in place policies that are going to expand the private sector of America . . .

Now here's the thing. As ill as I feel right now, I can understand why she did all that.

It is about her. She's a performer, she's a personality, that's her job--not all of her job, but a big part of her job. In fact, it's become the part of her job. The news networks now are desperate for stars. If she's a great journalist, that's great. But to make it to the big time or stay there, she needs to be a celebrity. She needs to be invited onto other shows, on other networks, treated like a celebrity in her own right. And she is. She's a staaaaah!

Great for her. And I'm sure she does want to be a good journalist, and works very hard at it. But she also understands the primary principle currently governing her business: good journalism is always appreciated but optional; heavy star-power is compulsory.

If she wraps the interview 20 minutes later with some real insights like you might get in a Charlie Rose interview, that would be great. But not what she's going to be judged on.

What she needs are a couple zingers, and above all, moments where she looks good. Or intriguing. Anything that will make her memorable. And preferably that will get her artful question included in the sound bite, instead of just the answers.

That's the core of it, really. A great interviewer does everything she can to evoke great responses. For a star journalist, it's all about the questions.