Katie, Please Don't Hate Me for Loving America
I've always found it hard to enjoy watching and listening to Katie Couric. I feel that the beauty queen who wanted a career like couric's but wanted to be taken seriously. Sure, she angered KC, but there's something that feels right about an opinion that Katie takes herself more seriously than others do.
I checked out this site
http://www.mrc.org/projects/couric/welcome.asp
to see if others agree with me and to see if she's as lightweight as I think. Katie seems to make foolish or outrageous statements in a naively self-assured way that shows she does expect to be taken seriously. Here's an example of her seemingly unaware that historians through the years will always have a new take on old subjects:
I can’t think of anyone more qualified to write another book about Ronald Reagan. The question is, do we need another book about Ronald Reagan?"
— First question to former Washington Post reporter and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon on the November 26, 2001.
Then there was the time she lavished praise on the socialist economy of France, an economy then steadily growing weaker, and which finally welcomed a leader recently who is trying to give the economy a healthy dose of capitalism... and oh, yeah, convince the labor force that it takes work to earn profits:
Keith Miller: "Break out the band, bring on the drinks. The French are calling it a miracle. A government-mandated 35-hour work week is changing the French way of life. Two years ago, in an effort to create more jobs, the government imposed a shorter work week on large companies, forcing them to hire more workers....Sixty percent of those on the job say their lives have improved. These American women, all working in France, have time for lunch and a life."
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: "More Americans should be more aware that an economy as successful as the French one managed to be successful without giving up everything else in life."
Katie Couric, following the end of Miller’s taped piece: "So great that young mother being able to come home at three every day and spend that time with her child. Isn’t that nice? The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"
— August 1, 2001.
But what irritates me most about Katie is her assumption that nationalism and patriotism are dirty words and people should just stop already with that flag waving. Her *National Press Club remarks recently were odious - at least to me. She said she was annoyed by, "The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States."
Now, I actually agree with her about that. I've never been thrilled by the flag-wearing (although I'd prefer to say "a flag on your lapel" or "flags on our lapels" but listen carefully, she's often sloppy about speech, even though it is her stock in trade, along with the perkiness). I don't have flags pasted or flying on my car - I would fly one from my home if I had one (a flag, not a home). But I can't say "we" without annoying her? Sorry, Katie, the USA is the only club I belong to. You can't stop Americans from saying (whether at times proudly or sadly), "we". You go ahead and say "they" when referring to Americans.
Countries where people seem embarrassed to openly appreciate and shelter their national heritage, as in Western Europe, have had to hear it reviled and attacked by those immigrants from the Middle East whom they have given the freedom they lacked in their native lands -- people who despise and attack the land that shelters them.
If it annoys Katie perhaps I should start wearing a flag lapel pin -- except that I don't have a lapel.
*Article by Johah Goldberg,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2I1NzI2ZGMzZDE2NzNiZjQ5MjVkMDZkNTQzZjJmZDQ=
I checked out this site
http://www.mrc.org/projects/couric/welcome.asp
to see if others agree with me and to see if she's as lightweight as I think. Katie seems to make foolish or outrageous statements in a naively self-assured way that shows she does expect to be taken seriously. Here's an example of her seemingly unaware that historians through the years will always have a new take on old subjects:
I can’t think of anyone more qualified to write another book about Ronald Reagan. The question is, do we need another book about Ronald Reagan?"
— First question to former Washington Post reporter and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon on the November 26, 2001.
Then there was the time she lavished praise on the socialist economy of France, an economy then steadily growing weaker, and which finally welcomed a leader recently who is trying to give the economy a healthy dose of capitalism... and oh, yeah, convince the labor force that it takes work to earn profits:
Keith Miller: "Break out the band, bring on the drinks. The French are calling it a miracle. A government-mandated 35-hour work week is changing the French way of life. Two years ago, in an effort to create more jobs, the government imposed a shorter work week on large companies, forcing them to hire more workers....Sixty percent of those on the job say their lives have improved. These American women, all working in France, have time for lunch and a life."
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: "More Americans should be more aware that an economy as successful as the French one managed to be successful without giving up everything else in life."
Katie Couric, following the end of Miller’s taped piece: "So great that young mother being able to come home at three every day and spend that time with her child. Isn’t that nice? The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"
— August 1, 2001.
But what irritates me most about Katie is her assumption that nationalism and patriotism are dirty words and people should just stop already with that flag waving. Her *National Press Club remarks recently were odious - at least to me. She said she was annoyed by, "The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States."
Now, I actually agree with her about that. I've never been thrilled by the flag-wearing (although I'd prefer to say "a flag on your lapel" or "flags on our lapels" but listen carefully, she's often sloppy about speech, even though it is her stock in trade, along with the perkiness). I don't have flags pasted or flying on my car - I would fly one from my home if I had one (a flag, not a home). But I can't say "we" without annoying her? Sorry, Katie, the USA is the only club I belong to. You can't stop Americans from saying (whether at times proudly or sadly), "we". You go ahead and say "they" when referring to Americans.
Countries where people seem embarrassed to openly appreciate and shelter their national heritage, as in Western Europe, have had to hear it reviled and attacked by those immigrants from the Middle East whom they have given the freedom they lacked in their native lands -- people who despise and attack the land that shelters them.
If it annoys Katie perhaps I should start wearing a flag lapel pin -- except that I don't have a lapel.
*Article by Johah Goldberg,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2I1NzI2ZGMzZDE2NzNiZjQ5MjVkMDZkNTQzZjJmZDQ=
Labels: cosmopolitanism, Katie Couric, patriotism
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