All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

The White House sent a powerful message this morning to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai: He'll get no extra U.S. troops, until he proves his government is credible.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says President Barack Obama must be convinced he's got a legitimate partner in Kabul.

"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop level," Emanuel said on CNN's "State of the Union," "if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S troops would create and become a true partner in governing the Afghan country."

That's a message that will reverberate in Kabul, where U.S. diplomats have been urging incumbent President Karzai to somehow legitimize an election widely believed to be fraudulent, by choosing one of two options – a runoff election between the two top candidates Karzai, and his nearest challenger Abdullah Abdullah, or a negotiation between those candidates, Emanuel said.

That Sunday morning politicking won praise from Brooking Institution's Michael O'Hanlon.

"I think a little Chicago politics could be just what this situation needs," he said, to pressure President Karzai to prove to the Americans – and more importantly to Afghan citizens – that his government is credible.

Otherwise, O'Hanlon says, the U.S. faces repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where it poured in more troops, but had no credible partner in the South Vietnamese government to back it up.

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Saturday Oct. 17 will be a date that could take up an interesting place in the history books. Because on that day – as far as we can ascertain – the world’s first-ever underwater cabinet meeting will take place . It will take place in the Maldives -- an Indian Ocean archipelago of 1,192 coral islets, most of which lie barely five feet above sea level. The idea of the conclave beneath the waves is to highlight any connection that may exist between global warming and rising seas.

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CBS News Producer Mary Walsh recounts her first meeting in 2004 with Corporal Casey Owens, a Marine who was disabled in Iraq, frustrated with the treatment he received from the Veterans Administration.

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A new report (PDF) today from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed that big banks – including the recipients of billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts – paid their employees massive bonuses regardless of how the banks performed.

Correspondent Kelly Wallace is covering the story for tonight's "CBS Evening News". Earlier today, she discussed the report and previewed tonight's story in a conversation with CBSNews.com editor-in-chief Dan Farber.

In an interview Tuesday with CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Katie Couric, President Barack Obama talked about some of his most meaningful moments during his first six months on the job.

“What’s the most fun you’ve had since you’ve been here, besides talking to me?” Couric quipped.

“Well, seeing those astronauts was pretty cool because I remember those guys when I was a kid and sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders in Hawaii and watching the astronauts come in and then to see them and shake their hands and listen to their stories. It was remarkable,” President Obama said. The Apollo 11 astronauts were honored at a White House ceremony on Monday marking the 40th anniversary of the moon mission.

Mr. Obama then reflected on some of the personal stories that people have told him as he’s traveled the country pushing his policies.

“The thing I probably enjoy most, though, is every time I have an opportunity to do a town hall meeting and I go out and I’m shaking hands and somebody tells me you know what, I kept health insurance that I had lost from my job because of the Recovery Act package that you passed or my clean energy company got started because you have emphasized that," he said. "Then you get a sense of ok, every once in a while what you’re doing is actually making a difference and that is really encouraging."

In the days since we heard the news about Walter Cronkite's death, we've resurrected some pretty old fashioned words: decency, honor, integrity. Those are the things the most trusted man in America stood for. The accolades have been pouring in from people like George Herbert Walker Bush, who called him a "towering, respected figure," to Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post who said Walter validated his paper's reporting on Watergate. If it was important enough for him, Bradlee suggested, it made the whole country stand up and take notice. The Kennedy assassination, the civil rights movement, the space program, Vietnam - chapters of American history through which he held our hand and made sense of it all.

No network or cable anchor will ever take his place. But to honor Walter, we can continue to uphold the standards he established when TV was the exciting new technology of the moment. We can all strive for excellence - to be the kind of player he was, even if we're doing it on a smaller field.

That's a page from my notebook.

There is one quote that really stuck with me when we were researching ideas for tonight’s story on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric about college students graduating into the recession. “Damn me for being born in ’87,” Suzanne Block told The Chicago Tribune back in March before graduating. “This is just a nightmare. There could not be a worse time to be looking for a job.”

Oh how right Suzanne is. Employers say they’ll hire 22 percent fewer grads this year versus last year. And while 51 percent of college seniors looking for jobs found one before leaving campus back in 2007, less than 20 percent were as fortunate this year.

Desperate times call for desperate measures? Well, maybe not desperate but unusual, creative approaches to the job hunt seem to be the norm, not the exception, as students try to find a way to stand out. Remember, today’s graduates are not only competing against their peers but against experienced 20-somethings and baby boomers who lost their jobs and are anxiously trying to find new ones.

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Last week I participated in a conference call with a group of mommy bloggers--women who blog for the sister sites of the Silicon Valley Moms Group. The topic was “Children of the Recession,” how the economy has impacted the lives of kids all around the country. I wanted to tell them about our ongoing commitment to report these stories, but mostly I just wanted to listen…I figured they would have a good sense of what was happening in their own neighborhoods, and what resources are available for people who need them.

The truth is most families have been impacted by the recession to some degree. A recent CBS News poll found that 60% of parents have had to tell their children there was not enough money to buy some of the things they did before. For some families, that may mean cutting out vacations or extra birthday presents, but for others it may be more serious…like skipping visits to the doctor or cutting back on groceries.

The Silicon Valley Moms Blogs are devoting today to this important topic, asking their readers how the recession is impacting kids in their communities.

I wanted to give them a shout out, and encourage you to join the conversation.

This video features some beautiful scenery of Afghanistan as Katie films takeoff from the cockpit on her way from Kabul to southern Afghanistan. Viewers will also get a look inside the C-17, a cavernous and loud aircraft that carries personnel and supplies.

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On her flight from Riyadh to Kabul, Katie takes us inside the cockpit to meet the Air Force pilots flying the plane.

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