Meet the Real Katie Couric
Table of Contents:
- Meet the Real Katie Couric
- Introduction
- Hardworking Hilary vs. Sexist America
- Feeling Her Feminism
- Envying Europe's Nanny States
- Distressed by Clinton Under Fire
- Deploring Ronald Reagan
- Republicans: "Rigid," "Exclusionary," "Divisive," and "Draconian"
- Christian Conservatives Created Murderous Climate
- GOP Win=Voters' Temper Tantrum
- Scolding NRA For Supporting Gun Rights
- Fawning Over Jimmy the Great
- Iraq, a Debacle Worse than Vietnam
- Let Big Government Fix Our Woes
- Denigrating "Divisive" Talk Radio
Deploring Ronald Reagan
"When you talk about leaving a deposit, many people say that the
Reagan-Bush administration, people on the other side of the political
spectrum, did leave a negative deposit, or really, the opposite of a
deposit. The federal budget quadrupled under that administration. They
might say that greed and materialism was the norm then, and that social
ills were largely ignored, and therefore only worsened as a result of
that neglect."
— Interviewing William F. Buckley Jr., on the September 20, 1993 Today.
"All this week you all have made much of Al Gore’s exaggerations but
the same things were often said about Ronald Reagan who would pass off
as true stories things he had seen in the movies. You know Republicans
brushed that off as part of Ronald Reagan’s charms or charm but now you
cite it as a major character flaw when it comes to Al Gore. Why was it
charming then and not presidential now?"
— To Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes, October 11, 2000 NBC Today.
"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 Today.
"The Gipper Was an Airhead!"
"Good morning. The Gipper was an airhead! That’s one of the
conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan that’s drawing a
tremendous amount of interest and fire today, Monday, September the
27th, 1999....We’re going to see why [author Edmund] Morris thinks
Reagan was an airhead, but still a great President."
— Opening Today, September 27, 1999. (With WMV video clip/MP3 audio)
Katie Couric: "There has been a lot of outrage expressed by
President Reagan’s friends and associates about your use of the word
‘airhead’ to describe him. George Bush says it’s brutal, grossly
unfair, untrue. Ed Meese, former attorney general, said it’s not fair,
not true. Marlin Fitzwater, former press secretary, says it’s totally
inappropriate to describe the former President that way."
Reagan biographer Edmund Morris:
"I agree with every single one of those. It’s brutal and grossly
unfair. I did not call him an ‘airhead.’...What I said in the book,
that appears plainly on the page, is I found him at first, ‘an apparent
airhead,’ and the whole course of the book makes quite obvious that
that first impression was wrong."
Couric: "So you do not believe today that Ronald Reagan was an airhead?"
Morris: "Oh, good God, no! He was a very bright man."
— NBC’s Today, September 29, 1999.
Criticizing Reagan Bashers=Censorship
"While he was in office he was known as the Teflon President, Ronald
Reagan. Now that CBS has pulled a controversial miniseries about him
some are wondering if the former President is totally off-limits to
criticism these days. We’ll have more on that....Still to come this
morning on Today, the heated debate over what can and can’t be said about this country’s 40th President. Is Ronald Reagan untouchable?"
— Promoting an upcoming Today segment about CBS’s cancellation of their anti-Reagan mini-series, November 6, 2003.
"Does [it] bother you at all that one group in America, or many
Americans...can basically exert this kind of political pressure and
create an environment where, perhaps, free speech is not exercised?"
— To former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins later on the same show.
Chiding "Right-Wing" Cheneys
"I’m just curious, do you have any problems with the fact that he
[Republican VP nominee Dick Cheney] did vote against Head Start —
because you care so deeply about education — and against a resolution
that would have allowed Nelson Mandela to be released from prison?"
— To Colin Powell, August 1, 2000 Today.
"Many people have described you as the true right-wing warrior
of the family. You’re a staunch conservative, you’ve spoken out against
feminism, multiculturalism, you oppose trigger locks for guns....You
have been described by Ken Adelman, a former arms control individual,
as ‘thinking all of Western civilization is in danger from the left and
she has no levity about that.’"
— Couric to Lynne Cheney, August 2, 2000 Today.
