One of Katie’s favored media writers, Howard Kurtz, offers this tidbit:

Katie Couric is feeling liberated.

Not because she is nearing the end of her five-year contract as CBS anchor–although there’s an unexpected plot twist on that front–but because she’s been spending less time in the studio. You can hear it in her voice.

“It’s great for me to get out of the chair and into the world,” she says. “I started out as a reporter, and I still enjoy reporting.”

[snip]

That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country” in an effort to divine the mood of the midterms.

Now, I’m sure you probably had the same reaction that I did: Katie must have misspoken. Right? She’s too smart to think like that. Right? I mean, this is a gal who graduated from the University of Virginia (Harvard, she likes to tell people, was her “safety school”) and has interviewed Presidents and heads of state and Michael J. Fox, for goodness sake. Does she really think the ladies of New Brunswick are “unwashed”?

Here’s what I think: she must have meant “unwatched.” As in, “You can’t leave those gals from New Jersey unwatched, you never know what crazy shenanigans they’ll get into!”  Or “unwatched” as in, “We should do a story about New Jersey because someone has to keep an eye on the Garden State. It’s an area that the media’s really left unwatched.”

Yes. Of course. That’s what she meant. 

Someone should call Howie Kurtz and have him check his tape.  I mean, he writes in his piece about Katie sampling a pumpkin latte at Starbucks.  Was she slurping foam when he did the interview?  Did she scald her tongue?   I bet that’s it.  I bet that made her sound funny.  I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.  She couldn’t have meant what he said she meant. Could she? I mean, she makes all that money — 15 gazillion or something — and surely she has more respect for her viewers than that.  Right?  Of course.  And to talk that way to a reporter?   I’m sure, if she’s still confused about what reporters do and how they do it, she could get pointers from Sarah Palin.  It’s just silly to think Katie Couric would ever say something dumb to a reporter.  Right?      

“The great unwashed.”  Heh.  That’s really rich.