"Today' Does Its Part.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Media: CBS' overt effort to influence the election with the report on lost explosives was too much even for NBC, which felt obliged to correct it. But NBC couldn't resist subtler forms of influence.

Did we say "subtler"? Try "ham-handed."

Thursday morning, just after allowing that her wannabe look-alike was at least "cute," Today Show co-host Katie Couric aired her interview with novelist Philip Roth.

The writer, best known for the onanistic "Portnoy's Complaint," was giving a rare chat about his latest, "The Plot Against America."

The improbable plot of "Plot"? In 1940 Charles Lindbergh -- that's right, Lucky Lindy, the famed trans-Atlantic pilot -- defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency. The noted isolationist and (some say) sympathizer with Adolf Hitler proceeds to lock up Roosevelt and New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. America's on her way to fascism.

President Lindbergh then arranges an accommodation with Germany's Nazi dictator, having campaigned on the slogan "Vote for Lindbergh or Vote for War!"

So Couric and Roth, having cautioned against drawing parallels to the current campaign, gleefully did so anyway. Katie introduced the Kerry-Edwards talking point that the Bush-Cheney campaign had indulged in fear-mongering. Just like the fictional Charles Lindbergh. Roth endorsed the similarity.