Quote of the Day (April 29, 2011)

Did Sarah Palin take a parting shot at Katie Couric?
*
theblogprof:

“You betcha! Heck yeah she did... Which is so apropos since Couric took the very first shot...”

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 22, 2010)

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Tim Graham at NewsBusters:

Palin said she would like to be more open with journalistic professionals, but left Couric out of that category...

[...]

On Twitter, Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast offered protest:

Palin on Couric: Won't "waste my time" w/ "reporter who already has such a bias." Name 1 Katie question that was unfair

Start with Couric asking Palin about another Great Depression, and then she turned around and protested to McCain that using phrases like "Great Depression" is reckless. Brent Baker offered an effective side-by-side comparison of the Palin and Biden treatments at the time.

- JP

Bernie Quigley: Katie Couric mocked Sarah Palin’s children

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Katie Couric mocked the names of Sarah Palin’s children in an off-the-air rehearsal during the 2008 presidential campaign. Here's Bernie Quigley's take:

“Where the hell do they get these names from?” she asked, referring to Palin children Trig and Track, sending her crew into peals of laughter.

I have some new names for CBS. In a tragedy in Louisiana this Monday, six young teenagers drowned.

Their names were: Takeitha, JaMarcus, JaTavious, Litrelle, LaDairus and Latevin.

These, like the names of Palin’s children, are American names.

[...]

The singular feature of America that persists west of 57th Street, where “Katie” and CBS live in paralysis, acting out an early-’60s fantasy equal to that of “Mad Men,” is that we Americans are born free and find and take that freedom in every generation.

[...]

And... we name our kids any damn thing we please.

More from Conservatives 4 Palin, Big Journalism, Hot Air and NewsBusters.

- JP

Who's lying about the Palin Interview: Nicolle Wallace or Katie Couric?

- By Thomas Lamb

Now what did Katie Couric say about the Sarah Palin interview posted here? 



From Couric's own YouTube site about asking what issues would you like for her to ask.

Send Katie your thoughts about her upcoming interview with Gov. Sarah Palin. What would you ask her if you could? What issues are most important to you as the election approaches? Leave a comment here on the channel or send an email to couriconline@cbsnews.com

Nicolle stated in her own YouTube how important YouTube is on holding people accountable. Couric's own words don't match Wallace's comments. Perhaps seeker of truth Rachel Maddow would care to do a follow up....

It has to do with eating crow...

Wallace told MSNBC that this is "rationalization or justification or fiction.  We set up this interview on the day of the U.N. General Assembly, with a walk-and-talk in front of the U.N. It was never made as two working gals ... that was supposed to be to highlight her foreign policy savvy." 

Seems Wallace has her messages mixed up...

- Tom

Sarah Palin On Being Interviewed By "The Perky One"

In her interview with Oprah Winfrey which was broadcast on "The Oprah Show" Monday, Sarah Palin refers to Katie Couric as "The Perky One":

Oprah: ...been in a situation where you leave and you say "I wish I had said something different." So when you finished that interview did you think, "I wish I had just named some magazines?"

Sarah: Absolutely! Then we probably wouldn't be talking about it today.

Oprah: So you are saying now that the reason why you had the responses to Katie Couric is because you were annoyed with her?

Sarah: Well, I was annoyed with where we were, what we were doing at the time, and all these segments too. We had just come off the most amazing rally, working the rope line for I don't know how long, these energized awesome people, and I'm pumped up, over the top pumped up with energy, and I'm so happy and running back stage. And my friend Betsy opens the curtain for me and there's the perky one again, with the microphone and the cameras rolling, and I'm like, hey, you know, give me a couple of minutes to gather...

Oprah: Perky meaning Katie.

Palin: With all due respect, yeah.

Oprah: You're pretty perky too.

Sarah: I talk a lot about the Katie Couric interview in the book because I want the transcript, too, to speak for itself, to show that she asked me twelve different times my position on abortion and the morning after pill. She did not want, I guess, to hear my first candid, truthful response about being pro life and wanting to usher in a culture of life and empower women to know that they are strong enough and smart enough to have that child. I gave my answer and she asked it again.

A video clip of this segment of the interview is here, courtesy of "Real Clear Politics. The Oprah Show's recap of the full interview is here.

Not included in that clip, but just prior to it, according to NewsBusters.org, Sarah Plain had said that some of her annoyance with Couric stemmed from what she perceived as an elist attitude on Couric's part:

"Well, and, obviously, I have, of course, all my life I'm a lover of books and magazines and newspapers," Palin said. "By the time she asked me that question, even though it was kind of early on in the interview, I was already so annoyed, and it was very unprofessional of me to wear that annoyance on my sleeve, but it was like ... ‘Are are you kidding me? Are you really asking me?' To me, it was in the context of, ‘Do you read? How do you stay informed, you're way up there?' It seemed like she was discovering this nomadic tribe, a member of a tribe from some Neanderthal cave in Alaska, asking me, ‘How do you stay in touch with the real world?'"

She said she thought Couric was indicative of the state of journalism today and the fundamental problems with it.

"That's how I took the question, so I kind of-- well, didn't kind of, I did. I rolled my eyes and was annoyed with the question and thought, ‘You know, I think that this is a problem with the state of journalism today, is no matter what I say to her, it will probably be twisted, perceived as a bit negative.'"

- JP

Going Rogue: Couric interview was a setup by Nicole Wallace

Now that the media types have their advance copies of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue memoir, bits and pieces of the book are beginning to leak out. The first morsels were revealed Tuesday by Mark Halperin. Now Associated Press Writer Richard Pienciak has divulged more details in an AP wire report.

According to Pienciak's reading of Going Rogue, a large chunk of Governor Palin's legal fees came unexpectedly in a bill presented to her by her running mate's campaign:

In the months leading up to her July resignation as Alaska governor, her legal bills had mounted to more than $500,000, fueled mostly by what she called frivolous ethics complaints. What appeared to upset her most, though, was that about $50,000 of the legal bills was her share of the expenses for being vetted for the VP nod, Palin writes.

She said no one had ever informed her that she would have to personally take care of any expenses related to the selection process.

Many Palin supporters have suspected that the Katie Couric interview arranged by the McCain campaign was a setup. Pienciak's story refers to a part of the former governor's book which would tend to confirm that suspicion:

She writes at length about Couric. She says that the idea to meet with Couric came from McCain campaign aide Nicolle Wallace, who told Palin that Couric - also a working mother - liked and admired her. It would be a favor to Couric, too, whom Palin notes had the lowest ratings of the network anchors. Wallace said Couric suffered from low self-esteem. And Palin replied that she almost began to "feel sorry" for Couric.

She alleges that Couric and CBS left out her more "substantive" remarks and settled for "gotcha" moments. She writes that Couric had a "partisan agenda" and a condescending manner. Couric was "badgering," biased and far easier on Couric's Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden.

Going Rogue is scheduled to hit the bookshelves Tuesday, November 17.

Editor's Note: AP initially reported the amount billed to palin by the McCain campaign as $500,000. Now AP has a rewrite of the story out (Without offering an explanation or retraction) in which it is reporting the figure as $50,000.

McCain campaign officials are disputing the claim that they billed Palin. Meanwhile the former governor's spokesperson Meg Stapleton won't comment, saying only that the book is embargoed until its official release date, which is next Tuesday.

So it's unclear just how much AP got wrong about Going Rogue. Did they just screw up on the dollar amount, or is the part of their story about the vetting billing inaccurate? Is the rest of the AP story credible, or were they just "making things up"?

- JP

Quote of the Day (June 9, 2009)

Professor Limbaugh, of The Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies:

"You know, folks, it's funny how Sarah Palin's future is so much brighter than Katie Couric's."

- JP

The hypocrisy of Katie Couric

The NewsBusters.com headline just about sums it up:

Couric Advises Against 'Nastiness' -- In Speech That Mocked Rush, Palin, Rumsfeld, and Miss California

- JP

But who will save the country from Obama-Biden?

From Allahpundit, we learn that antediluvian reporter Helen Thomas, at a "roast" of Katie Couric, said that perky Katie "saved the country" with her "gotcha" interview of Sarah Palin. Couric had prepared for the interview by consulting with Obama advisor Sam Nunn and former Colin Powell aide Richard Haass.

It's not clear how a President McCain and a Vice President Palin would have destroyed the nation, but it's apparent for all with eyes to see how President Obama has quadrupled the country's debt, gotten the government in the automobile, banking and finance businesses and has not the first clue about how to defend the nation. As for Vice President Biden, every time he opens his mouth, the world is treated to verbal stupidity.

Poor, deluded old fossil...

Update: More from Tim Graham at NewsBusters.org.

- JP

Ziegler: Award for Couric is 'an outrage'

Documentary film maker John Ziegler said on Fox and Friends this morning that the very idea of Katie Couric receiving the Cronkite Award for her interview of then GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is "an outrage":



- jP

Cronkite Award: Theater of the Absurd

Documentary film maker John Ziegler posted an op-ed on The Fox Forum about See-BS' Katie Couric, whom the Annenberg School for Communication will honor with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Journalism for her Sarah Palin interview:

It is obvious that Couric is being rewarded for the political result of her interview –the shooting down of a conservative superstar just in time to save the Obama campaign. It’s not about the "journalism" at all. But even that truth is not the most outrageous aspect of this absurdity. What’s even more absurd is that not only shouldn’t Couric be getting rewarded for her Palin interview, if we lived in a world where journalistic standards still mattered at all, she would have been roundly condemned for it.

Ziegler says that while he wasn't able to get a ticket for the April 15th awards ceremony he will be there:

I plan to be at the event handing out copies of “Media Malpractice” to any of the attendees who want to know the facts.

I am sure I will be received warmly. After all, isn’t getting the facts what journalism is supposed to be all about?

Well, John, to paraphrase a former president of the United States, that depends on what the meaning of "facts" is.

- JP