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Katie Couric: It’s great to be traveling America among “the great unwashed” (That means most of you)
Hotair ^ | 10/26/2010 | Allahpundit

Posted on 10/27/2010 7:19:43 AM PDT by WebFocus

It’s not as bad as it sounds. She didn’t mean it in a “these ignorant peasants sure do smell when they haven’t bathed” way. She meant it in a “I love to chat with these ignorant peasants no matter what they smell like” way. She’s a people person, guys. Accept it.

Rick Kaplan, her executive producer, says that “when she’s on the road—in Iraq with David Petraeus—she has a great way with people. People like her and she likes them. There are anchors who consider being on the road a pain in the butt. She really looks for opportunities to feel the earth and touch people.”

That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country” in an effort to divine the mood of the midterms.

Therein lies a key reason why Couric has sometimes struggled in her current job. She’s always seemed constrained by the rigid, 22-minute format, a far cry from her freewheeling Today performances over a decade and a half. So she has devised ways to slip out of her $15 million-a-year prison—launching a Web show, engaging on Twitter, and getting out in the field.

Says James Lileks, who reminds us that “the great unwashed” is a phrase coined by one of the world’s most notoriously bad writers:

If you can name the crime that will get me committed to a $15-million-a-year-prison, I will endeavor to commit it posthaste. But perhaps the reason she’s struggled is contained in her quote: the middle of the country suspects she regards them as hobnailed dirt-smeared dullards. It fits with the idea that real America – smart, credentialed, urban, sophisticated – exists in a thin crust on either coast, with the rest of the country a parenthetical insert in the national narrative. Unwashed. Criminey.

No, amend that. “Real America,” according to the coastal cultural viziers, is middle America, and that’s the problem. “Better America” is what you get in New York. But only between certain cross-streets.

I wonder if Katie would agree, even privately. Just as everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, everyone thinks they’re a populist — or rather, everyone thinks they’re not an elitist. Salary’s no barrier: Plenty of conservative media personalities do extremely well financially yet would bristle at the suggestion that they’re among the elite. Politics is, in theory, no barrier either: I don’t think of, say, Ralph Nader as an elitist even though he’s farrrrr left ideologically. The combination of salary and politics might be lethal, though. Is there even a single rich liberal out there whom righties wouldn’t instantly assume looks at middle America as the “great unwashed”? The only one who pops to mind is Bill Clinton but I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: america; greatunwashed; ilovethelittlepeople; katieantoinette; katiecouric
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1 posted on 10/27/2010 7:19:46 AM PDT by WebFocus
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To: WebFocus

Too bad we all can’t get paid to sit in front of a camera and pontificate.


2 posted on 10/27/2010 7:21:09 AM PDT by TexasPatriot1 ("Tyranny is defined as that which legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry" Jefferson)
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To: WebFocus

This will really help CBS’s ratings in fly-over country.


3 posted on 10/27/2010 7:21:35 AM PDT by AU72
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To: WebFocus

“She really looks for opportunities to feel the earth and touch people.””

Al Gore needs a new masseuse.


4 posted on 10/27/2010 7:21:36 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (lame and ill-informed post)
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To: WebFocus

What a miserable, nasty little [expletive deleted] Katie Couric is.


5 posted on 10/27/2010 7:23:20 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts ("Give me your secrets, Bring me a sign, Give me a reason to walk the fire.")
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To: WebFocus

Somehow I doubt she’ll be getting a real taste of flyover country.


6 posted on 10/27/2010 7:23:31 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: WebFocus

She went from perky to jerky.


7 posted on 10/27/2010 7:23:53 AM PDT by DManA
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To: WebFocus

Next time, Katie, just continue flying over.


8 posted on 10/27/2010 7:24:16 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: WebFocus

If you are referring to our unwashed brains, Katie, I would agree.


9 posted on 10/27/2010 7:25:05 AM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: WebFocus
That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country”

That's what she considers the MIDDLE of the country???

Hmmmm....upon further reflection, she might have been right about that "great unwashed" crack.

10 posted on 10/27/2010 7:25:46 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: WebFocus

“That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey.”

NOT REALLY. The real WHY is that they are trying to keep her busy on wild goose chases, and keep her OFF THE AIR, while she finishes her ‘contract’.


11 posted on 10/27/2010 7:26:12 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (lame and ill-informed post)
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To: UCANSEE2


From Mel Brooks' “History Of The World Part 1: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION″:

"Your Highness, the peasants are revolting!"

"You bet! They stink on ice!"

12 posted on 10/27/2010 7:26:44 AM PDT by WebFocus
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To: WebFocus

Maybe she could show us all her colonoscopy again.............


13 posted on 10/27/2010 7:27:12 AM PDT by Red Badger (WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE GIVE MEGHAN MCCAIN A BOX OF KRISPY KREMES SO SHE'LL SHUT THE HELL UP?!)
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To: WebFocus

America's hottest infobabe dem newsreader!
Hot Hot Hot! Can't wait to see her on dancing with the stars! ;o)

14 posted on 10/27/2010 7:27:50 AM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: WebFocus
I dunno what brand of soap she's using on these "unwashed masses", but I'll bet its slogan is, "Aren't you glad you use SOCIALISM, don't you wish everybody did?"
15 posted on 10/27/2010 7:29:31 AM PDT by FrankR (November 2nd is NOT an election - it's a RESTRAINING ORDER.....VOTE!)
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To: WebFocus
She didn’t mean it in a “these ignorant peasants sure do smell when they haven’t bathed” way.

Quoth Harry Reid:

"In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."

16 posted on 10/27/2010 7:30:13 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (King: "I have a dream"...Sharpton: "I want a check")
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

Who is Katie Couric?

couric: A unit of measure for fecal matter. One couric is equal to approximately two and a half pounds of excrement. (From South Park season 11, episode 9) ...


17 posted on 10/27/2010 7:32:37 AM PDT by flowerplough (Thomas Sowell: Those who look only at Obama's deeds tend to become Obama's critics.)
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To: WebFocus

Did she get her shots?


18 posted on 10/27/2010 7:32:40 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: DManA

Katie is just dumb. It is that simple


19 posted on 10/27/2010 7:34:44 AM PDT by oldironsides
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To: WebFocus

Katie Couric is the “Joe Biden” of news anchors. Dumb as a stump.


20 posted on 10/27/2010 7:38:52 AM PDT by LeonardFMason
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