Slate's Jack Shafer has a brutal take-down of Cokie Roberts' “on-air blather about politics, the economy, and world events with whichever unlucky Morning Edition host has drawn the short straw.” Here's Shafer's basic point:

I can think of no comparably sized media space that's as void of original insight and information as Roberts'. Her segments, though billed as “analysis” by NPR, do little but speed-graze the headlines and add a few grace notes. If you're vaguely conversant with current events, you're already cruising at Roberts' velocity. Roberts doesn't just voice the conventional wisdom; she is the convention wisdom.

I don't really disagree with anything Shafer has to say about Roberts -- except his strange belief that there's something unique about a political analysis segment that consists of nothing more than banal and predictable observations. Roberts is the rule, not the exception.