Columnist Kathleen Parker says she is pulling for Katie Couric (though she can’t help a certain amount of meowing). In a hilarious column, however, Ms. Parker has this to say about Katie’s “listening tour” and her prospects as doyenne of the evening:
[T]he decision to send Couric around the country on a “listening tour,” scheduled to wrap up Monday, was a poor calculation. First off, the free-associative mind goes straight to that other trailblazing female, Hillary Clinton, who launched a listening tour before running for U.S. Senate.
Katie, Hillary, Katie, Hillary – two liberal peas in a pod? The question burrows in the mind and wants to stay.
And what’s with this listening shtick, anyway? Couric isn’t running for public office. Being an anchor isn’t an elected position, though viewers ultimately will vote with their remotes. But shouldn’t a newsperson be about the news rather than about the person?
The fact of the tour, which is taking Couric to six cities in order to expose her to what the media like to call Ordinary Americans, merely confirms what those same Americans already dislike about the media – and especially about media personalities on the celebrity level of a Couric.