Is Charlie Gibson responsible for his own ... success? The way Howard Kurtz reports it, perhaps yes. We know, it's a silly question to pose: Charlie is the face of ABC's World News, so of course he should take credit for sliding into the top spot among evening newscasts. But over at the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric's hum-drum performance in Nielsen's eyes also gets blamed on who's producing the show. (Before: Rome Hartman; Now: Rick Kaplan.)

But under Kurtz's eye, it's Gibson running the newscast, choosing to cut stories about the latest deaths in Iraq, "order[ing] up" pieces about post-Don Imus tones in media, bumping news of Jerry Falwell's death to anywhere but the lead story.

Sure, Charlie's exec producer Jon Banner is there. Somewhere. But it's Charlie's turf. At Katie's show, she's been relegated to just reading the autocue. (Brian Williams, to be sure, wields supreme power at NBC.)

Kurtz, however, isn't the only one lauding praise.

Over at the New York Times, Jacques Steinberg pays tribute to Charlie's "second wind," while USA Today's Peter Johnson notes Charlie is "involved in every aspect of World News."

And why not, if Charlie's Way is what's getting them to 9 million viewers. As we noted this morning, though, it's not like he's paying any attention: "I am amazed at the number of people who pay attention to it and how often people comment on it. Obviously if you get into this, ratings becomes a part of it because it's an important arbiter for everyone. I didn't say to myself, 'Boy, I want to be number one in a year.' We haven't won anything yet. Hell, Brian's beaten us more weeks than we've beaten him."

Just like attractive people criticizing others for caring so much about surface-level beauty, it's certainly easy for the upcoming ratings king to care so little about his numbers.

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