Barbara Walters proved to be just as good as the men in the media world, but, sadly, no better. More Joan Lunden than Joan Didion, she didn’t enlighten but entertained, sinking gleefully along with the culture, participating in its descent. The opening of a Walters takedown at Salon, on the day she announced her retirement, by the consistently and delightfully petulant Alex Pareene:

“Barbara Walters has announced her retirement from journalism, a profession she claims to have been practicing for more than 50 years. Walters, the former co-host of the Today show, ABC World News, 20/20, and current co-host of The View, is a national icon and a pioneer, and probably as responsible as any other living person for the ridiculous and sorry state of American television journalism. She has announced her retirement a year in advance, so that a series of aggrandizing specials can be produced celebrating her long and storied career. So let’s get things started off right, by reminding everyone how her entire public life has been an extended exercise in sycophancy and unalloyed power worship.”

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“Baby, baby, baby, you have Bieber Fever”: