For the past two years now, ever since she left the Today show for an anchor position on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric has been criticized on a steady basis (drip-drip-drip). Gender has always been a crucial part of that derision (drip), that despite her years of experience (drip) and proven track record in her field (drip) she couldn't hang with the boys (drip-drip). Just give up (drip). Ratings were low, rumors persisted (drip-drip-drip...)
She would be replaced, and soon, they said. They said.
Now, on the morning of October 3, we all owe Katie Couric an apology and a great big Thank You.
Last night we witnessed in the Vice Presidential Debate Sarah Palin give a very steady, very rehearsed performance. Replete with multiple winks and shout outs to third graders. She worked the camera effectively, but as she is a former television sportcaster this skill should come as no surprise. Oh yes, she did what she needed to do: studied her talking points, played to her base, didn't embarass herself. Pundits and her supporters on the Right will say she won! and posit as evidence her folksy charm, her likeability, her ability to connect with Joe Six Pack, pop open a cold one, if you will. But thanks to Katie Couric, the rest of us see something different.
Had Katie Couric not exposed Governor Palin in the week preceding the debate as woefully out of her depth and dangerously uninformed we may well have been trumpeting last night's exercise in cramming and attitude (cramitude) as a triumphant repeat of her turn at the Republican National Convention. Katie asked the Governor (whose college degree is in journalism) to name which newspapers she read. She couldn't. Katie asked the candidate running for the second highest position in the land, the world even, to name a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade. She couldn't. Not one. America paid attention.
In a week where our nation's most familiar refrain has been not "bridge to nowhere", "lipstick on a pig", or "drill baby drill" but "$700 billion dollars", winks and shout outs just wouldn't do. Katie Couric had given us skepticism and the grim reality of the bailout hearings gave us anger so last night my friends, cramitude met its kryptonite.
Senator Joe Biden gave the debate of his life and thoroughly exposed the Alaskan governor's surface-y, slippery grasp of the issues through his pointed and aggressive use of facts, history, nuance and common sense. This is what a leader looks like.
After spending much of the debate in recitation, the most telling point of the evening was when Governor Palin, in defining the duties of the job she was running for openly admitted to seeking constitutional wiggle room to enlarge the role of the Vice President. She wants more power. Doesn't read newspapers, but wants more power. Just got her passport last year, but wants more power. Can't name a Supreme Court case, but wants more power. ______________________, but she wants more power. Feel free to fill in the blank in the comment section, Lord knows you've earned it.
There are four weeks left.
Our economy is in crisis.
Those winks and one liners are falling flatter and flatter.
Because we're paying attention.
Thank You, Katie Couric.
She would be replaced, and soon, they said. They said.
Now, on the morning of October 3, we all owe Katie Couric an apology and a great big Thank You.
Last night we witnessed in the Vice Presidential Debate Sarah Palin give a very steady, very rehearsed performance. Replete with multiple winks and shout outs to third graders. She worked the camera effectively, but as she is a former television sportcaster this skill should come as no surprise. Oh yes, she did what she needed to do: studied her talking points, played to her base, didn't embarass herself. Pundits and her supporters on the Right will say she won! and posit as evidence her folksy charm, her likeability, her ability to connect with Joe Six Pack, pop open a cold one, if you will. But thanks to Katie Couric, the rest of us see something different.
Had Katie Couric not exposed Governor Palin in the week preceding the debate as woefully out of her depth and dangerously uninformed we may well have been trumpeting last night's exercise in cramming and attitude (cramitude) as a triumphant repeat of her turn at the Republican National Convention. Katie asked the Governor (whose college degree is in journalism) to name which newspapers she read. She couldn't. Katie asked the candidate running for the second highest position in the land, the world even, to name a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade. She couldn't. Not one. America paid attention.
In a week where our nation's most familiar refrain has been not "bridge to nowhere", "lipstick on a pig", or "drill baby drill" but "$700 billion dollars", winks and shout outs just wouldn't do. Katie Couric had given us skepticism and the grim reality of the bailout hearings gave us anger so last night my friends, cramitude met its kryptonite.
Senator Joe Biden gave the debate of his life and thoroughly exposed the Alaskan governor's surface-y, slippery grasp of the issues through his pointed and aggressive use of facts, history, nuance and common sense. This is what a leader looks like.
After spending much of the debate in recitation, the most telling point of the evening was when Governor Palin, in defining the duties of the job she was running for openly admitted to seeking constitutional wiggle room to enlarge the role of the Vice President. She wants more power. Doesn't read newspapers, but wants more power. Just got her passport last year, but wants more power. Can't name a Supreme Court case, but wants more power. ______________________, but she wants more power. Feel free to fill in the blank in the comment section, Lord knows you've earned it.
There are four weeks left.
Our economy is in crisis.
Those winks and one liners are falling flatter and flatter.
Because we're paying attention.
Thank You, Katie Couric.
