Cheers to St. Petersburg Times TV critic Eric Deggans for asking the best question of the day.

Here’s his setup from his coverage of Katie Couric talking to TV critics yesterday:

On the question, for example, of why all three network news anchors are traveling with Democratic candidate Barack Obama on his trip to Iraq next week, Couric was candid: Obama’s organization was smart enough to invite the press along.

“It was very deft on the part of the Obama campaign,” she said, noting she spent time in McCain’s campaign headquarters for a story to air next week. Had McCain invited reporters when he toured four Middle East countries in March, they would have considered it, she said. Although, “Obama going to the Middle East is a bigger story.”

And here’s Deggans’ retort:

My question: Why are such high-powered journalists depending on campaign staffers to invite them to cover the news, anyway?

Yes!

A reader below notes this story from a few days ago in the Los Angeles Times:

Coming soon to Hollywood: Larry King Square.

Courtesy of Los Angeles City Hall, the intersection of Sunset and Cahuenga boulevards will be named in honor of the longtime CNN talk show host today.

We haven’t been this happy for Larry King since that wonderful moment with Marlon Brando ….

News on Larry King, from TV Newser:

Harvey Weinstein announced today that the publishing arm of The Weinstein Company has acquired the rights to publish Larry King’s “definitive autobiography,” What Am I Doing Here?

It’s an age-old question about Larry King we’ve all been wondering, so we’re glad to finally get some answers.  Of course, others have tried asking that, with little success.

Anheuser-Busch launches the latest phase of its ‘Real Men of Genius’ TV commercials.  This one’s dedicated to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, host of the Hardball with Chris Matthews Show.

Mr. Really, Really, Really Bad Dancer.

Of course, Mr. Russert…

Why is Tim Russert smiling?

Find out here.

A touching Tucker Carlson anecdote in The Hill today:

Carlson comes with quirks. For one thing, he never locks his car even though a woman once stalked him and another accused him of rape. The stalker wrote a letter to his daughter, then 6, that said, “Your father has to kill me or I’m going to kill you.”

But the unlocked car? He once found a guy asleep and wrapped in newspaper in the back seat of his Volvo station wagon. “I beat on the windows and made him get out,” he says.

And what happened to the guy in the car?  As fate would have it, that guy went on to host a little show on TV called “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.”