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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Sorry, Katie...as long as you shill for the Bush Administration on the air, you are an enabler
Posted by Jill | 7:22 AM
Katie Couric wants everyone to know, or at least the few hundred people she addressed at the National Press Club Tuesday night, that she thinks the Iraq War was mismanaged:


“Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war,” said Couric, adding that it is “pretty much accepted” that the war in Iraq was a mistake.

“I’ve never understood why [invading Iraq] was so high on the administration’s agenda when terrorism was going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that [Iraq] had no true connection with al Qaeda.”

Further, Couric said the Bush administration botched the war effort, calling it “accepted truths” that it erred by“disbanding the Iraq military, and leaving 100,000 Sunni men feeling marginalized and angry...[and] whether there were enough boots on the ground, the feeling that we’d be welcomed as liberators and didn’t need to focus as much on security.” She added “I’d feel totally comfortable saying any of that at some point, if required, on television.”

The former “Today” show anchor traced her discomfort with the administration’s march to war back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ when referring to the United States and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the ‘Today’ show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’ And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.”


Not difficult enough to not join in the jingoistic chorus, though.

If Couric is so troubled by the conduct of this war, then whence this puff-piece about Petraeus, in which she dutifully parrots the Administration's talking points?





Sorry, Katie, you don't get a pass on this one. You had a unique opportunity, with your popularity and the clout you had as co-anchor of Today to educate the very Americans who need it most -- the people scrambling around to get ready for work and get the kids ready for school, the ones whose only exposure to what's happening in the world around them is what their ears pick up by osmosis from the morning news/talk shows. And instead you decided to dutifully spout the Bush Administration's talking points and pump up David Petraeus until the Fox News gasbags and their followers were no longer able to distinguish Petraeus from Jesus.

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