Katie Couric kicks back

CBS News anchor and managing editor Katie Couric made it all official on Friday. “As some of you may already know, I’m moving on from CBS News, and next Thursday will be my last broadcast,” Couric said Friday of her grand run at the helm of CBS News, which ends on May 19. Couric promised a retrospective of her some of her more memorable broadcasts from the nearly five-year Couric Era, which started Sept. 5, 2006. It’s a safe bet there won’t be a dry eye in the studio that evening.

Couric’s replacement, Scott Pelley, is presumably scheduled to start as the new CBS News anchor the next day. The buzz about Pelley in the big chair has been nominal, compared to Couric's ascension. Sometimes even downright unflattering. On May 9th’s “Late Show,” David Letterman weighed in on the changing of the guard, by way of praising the winner of the Run for the Roses.

“Congratulations to Animal Kingdom!” Letterman said. “You watch the Kentucky Derby? Odds of that horse winning were 20 to one. Same odds they’re giving Katie Couric’s replacement.”

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How Couric will choose to unwind before her next television project remains to be seen. Some clever wiseacre with a sharp command of human anatomy and Photoshop posted a YouTube video that suggests Couric’s already started kicking back.

Or maybe it’s the real thing! Maybe Couric was caught in an unguarded moment on an internal CBS News feed — much like the one that caught Sen. John McCain in a lie during the 2008 campaign.

Whatever’s next for Katie Couric, it’s right and proper to wish her all the best. After four years and eight months at CBS News, and the ratings decline that’s attended her stewardship there from almost the beginning, despite her best efforts, she could use a break. When she hangs ‘em up on Thursday, shots of Jagermeister might not be enough to unwind with.

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Image credits: Couric illustration: via YouTube. CBS eye: © 2011 CBS Inc.