Now watch Williams "swordfight" with Barack Obama. He's gone from musketeer to Mouseketeer. On the fifth anniversary of the hurricane, Williams deferred to the statesman before him by asking about the lack of a national conversation: "Katrina was about so many things. It was about class and race and government and the environment. Whatever happened to that national conversation we were supposed to have about it?"

Is that all the toughness Williams could muster? That's how he "crackles" now? See his crackling swordfight over the BP oil spill and Obama's lack of effort: "It's getting baked in a little bit in the media that BP was President Obama's Katrina. And it's also getting baked in that the administration was slow off the mark. Is that unfair?"

What about our disastrous economy? Surely Williams would challenge Obama here. "Do you have anything new on the economy?"

Instead of tough questions, Williams felt Obama's pain that too many Americans misunderstand his religious faith: "Mr. President, you're an American-born Christian, and yet increasing and now significant numbers of Americans in polls, upwards of a fifth of respondents, are claiming you are neither. A fifth of the people, just about, believe you're a Muslim. ... This has to be troubling to you. This is, of course, all-new territory for an American president."

That's not even a question! But it's all in a day's shoeshine for Brian Williams. He loved slinging "racist, classist" mud on Bush, but he was so distraught by Obama's-a-Muslim rumors that he replayed the poor-Barry exchange a second time the next night.

Why is this arrogant partisan the leading evening-news anchor in America? He drew 7.2 million viewers last week, as the ratings continue to decline. That's not unexpected when an anchorman can't be bothered to ask tougher questions to this president than his makeup artist would.