From the roast of CBS anchor Katie Couric this past week

Rick Kaplan, Couric's executive producer at Evening News was first up.

"Roasting your anchor... can be really dangerous," he opened. "We did have to edit out a couple of comments that Katie made during the interview, for instance, when Governor Palin said "I can see Russia from my house", Katie actually said, "well I can see Jersey from mine but that doesn't mean I know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried."

We'll let the roasters speak for themselves...

"The transition from NBC to CBS was a little rough. Katie went from asking 'where in the world is Matt Lauer' to 'where the hell are my viewers?'" -David Axelrod

"People were surprised by the intensity of that interview with Sarah Palin, but I wasn't. To me, it made perfect sense. After all, Katie has made it her civic responsibility to conduct public colonoscopies. But I'm sure that will be the butt of a lot of jokes tonight." -Axelrod

"What a delight to see Sam, ABC's favorite son. Many of you think that's an incomplete sentence, I know." - Jeff Greenfield on Donaldson

"Our audience thinks YouTube is a hemorrhoid cream." -Greenfield on CBS

"Everyone at FOX News has been fantastic to me. Bill O'Reilly even tips me when I park his car." - Mike Huckabee

"She saved the country." - Helen Thomas on Couric's Palin interviews

My late, sainted father was a salesman for 29 years and he had this plaque in his office:

"Samson was a piker. He once killed ten thousand Philistines in battle with the jaw bone of an ass. Every day in this great country, ten thousand sales are killed with the same weapon..."

Katie didn't have to do anything except nod and say "uh huh..."

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Strelnik
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Funny, the banner ad google chose for this thread is the support Sarah PAC.

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I don't think Google selects any ad without gettng paid for it.

A slight exaggeration, but you put your finger on one of the qualities that makes Katie Couric one of the best interviewers on TV - she listens to the answers and responds accordingly. Katie's a smart girl, no doubt.

It was comical to watch Palin try to blame Couric for Palin's poor performance in those interviews. It was an intellectual mismatch.

Yeah, right, she's right up there with Larry King. Listening to someone talk and asking a follow up question doesn't make a great interviewer - I can do that. Getting the interviewee to talk about something that they don't want to talk about, probing the inner depths of an interviewee, is what makes a great interviewer. Katie does not have that ability, and she never has. A small circle of people on the east coast constantly tell her how great she is (to her and us), and she starts believing it. Guess what? The rest of us don't .

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- Brian


1989 500SEL Euro
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1958 BMW Isetta 600

I didn't say it did. I said it was one of the qualities that makes Katie Couric one of the best interviewers on TV.Good for you, because few can. I know few people who listen well.Really? Tell that to Bob Dole. She tore him a new one back in 1992.The part I don't get is why you are the authority on such things. I can't say I have followed Couric's career very closely. I've just heard her do several interviews that are better than the average TV interviewer. She is prepared, logical, and asks good questions.

You have a low opinion of her abilities. Are there any other TV people who you think are better than her?

It's not about the interviewer, it's about the interviewee. "Tearing Gore a new one" probably says more about what you think makes a great interviewer than I could ever point out. I don't think it's the job of any interviewer to tear anyone "a new one"; it's to get the interviewee to talk and explain how they see the world so that most people can understand their side of things. The interviewer has to have A LOT of knowledge on the subject, so that the "right" questions can get asked.

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- Brian


1989 500SEL Euro
1966 250SE Cabriolet
1958 BMW Isetta 600

That's silly. By the way, it was Dole, not Gore. I didn't mean that Couric was a great interviewer simply because she tore him a new one. What I meant was that she did a great interview which met the criterion that you said qualified one as a great interview - she got Dole to talk about things he didn't want to talk about. She got under his skin so bad that he lost his temper right on camera, not because of any showboating or trick questions by Couric. It was just an effective interview.Which is one thing that makes Couric one of the best. IMHO. She is a smart, well educated woman who knows how to prepare. And she doesn't back down when someone tries to intimidate her.

Are you in the news business or something? If so, please educate me where I'm going wrong on Couric.

One morning around 1992, my wife and I were watching the Today Show and Katie Couric had two women on the program discussing sex education and birth control.

All of a sudden, one of the women pulls out a dildo of porn star dimensions and Katie explains that they are going to demonstate the proper way to use a condom.

The woman giving the demonstration then opens a condom but unrolls it before trying to put it on the dildo. Of course she couldn't get it on the thing, and she obviously had never applied a condom before.

It was really an unbelievable moment in television history...shocking, stupid and totally unnecessary. It's how I'll always remember Katie: her staring attentively at a 10 inch dildo. Anybody who remembers her from those days can't take her too seriously now.

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1983 300D

That is bizarre. What were they thinking?

I think Couric was going for avant-garde, but only achieved the absurd. I remember Katie saying that her father was going to be embarrassed when he saw that.

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1983 300D

Maybe they found it in Bryant's dressing room?