Is Katie Couric Joking About "Jocular"?

Katie Couric decries the lack of women in media by whining about the lack of women in Congress, and delivers a word usage that appears to be utterly wrong.  Let's set the stage:

The White House invited all the network anchors, and some cable anchors, along with the Sunday political show hosts to a meeting with unnamed VERY senior administration officials. (Obviously I know their names, but the agreement was that in order to attend the meeting, we couldn’t reveal the people who spoke to us.)

...

And yet, the meeting was a little disconcerting as well. As I was looking at my colleagues around the room—Charlie Gibson, George Stephanopoulos, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, Wolf Blitzer, and Brit Hume—I couldn’t help but notice, despite how far we’ve come, that I was still the only woman there. Well, there was some female support staff near the door. But of the people at the table, the “principals” in the meeting, I was the only one wearing a skirt. Everyone was gracious, though the jocular atmosphere was palpable.

I have the palpable feeling that Ms. Couric is using "jocular" to mean, well, "jock-ular" - a synonym for "macho", I infer.  Or do women not make jokes and banter a bit?  Dare we ask whether she realizes that "jocular" means "given to jesting: habitually jolly... or characterized by jesting"?  Dare we ask whether she realizes that for many if not most of us English speakers, "jocular" has no sexual connotation at all?

Well, she'd have to be pretty thick to make that mistake.  But then again, she would have to be pretty thick to continue with this:

The feminist movement that began in the 1970’s helped women make tremendous strides—but there still haven’t been enough great leaps for womankind. Fifty-one percent of America is female, but women make up only about sixteen percent of Congress—which, as the Washington Monthly recently pointed out, is better than it’s ever been...but still not as good as parliaments in Rwanda (forty-nine percent women) or Sweden (forty-seven percent women). Only nine Fortune 500 companies have women as CEO’s.

What?!?  At an Executive Branch briefing for the media Ms. Couric is ruminating about the under-representation of women in Congress?  A hint - if Congress were 100% female and, beggaring belief, had a female speaker (oh, yeah...) her media briefing with Tim, George, Brit, Brian et al would still have had too many men.  Can you guess why that is, Katie?  Because there were neither Congressmen or Congress-chicks in attendance.

I am still attempting to absorb the news that the US has not yet achieved the high standard set by Rwanda.

NOTE TO SELF:  Re-write Living Will.  The clause that explains that watching televised golf for more than two hours shall be taken as conclusive evidence of brain death must be amended to included "or watching Katie Couric for more than two minutes".

NOT FAIR!  From Hot Air:

And while Katie fretted about her skirt and waxed poetic about the long, hard slog to shatter the glass ceiling in war-torn Fortune 500 boardrooms in tremendous strides of self-absorption, Michelle Malkin put on body armor and walked around Baghdad with the US Army without makeup or a single complaint. Which one is the feminist icon again?

NOTE:  Via Matt Drudge.

Comments

[clarice]

OUCH!!

[Mie]

The woman on the intelligence committee did a great job working with Plame and the NSA complaints, etc. The Directors of British intelligence MI5/6 are doing great, Paris is still a mess, Afghanistan got sold out; but that's legacies bailing out when there is no money like they always do...................

[bgates]

The White House invited all the network anchors, and some cable anchors, along with the Sunday political show hosts to a meeting with unnamed VERY senior administration officials....of the people at the table, the “principals” in the meeting, I was the only one wearing a skirt.
OK, so Condi had a pantsuit. (That's why she had to switch to talk of Congress, by the way - else she'd have to admit the executive branch is as diverse as the media principals.)

[Lew Clark]

Katie is not only a gal, she's an old-fashioned gal. At my last office, I was the only male, but you seldom saw anyone wearing a skirt at meetings.

[sad]

I have the palpable feeling that Ms. Couric is using "jocular" to mean, well, "jock-ular" - a synonym for "macho", I infer. Or do women not make jokes and banter a bit? Dare we ask whether she realizes that "jocular" means "given to jesting: habitually jolly... or characterized by jesting"? Dare we ask whether she realizes that for many if not most of us English speakers, "jocular" has no sexual connotation at all?

Perhaps, the fembot experience is that men (jocks) really are more jocular when fewer fembots are present. Which would make the incorrect usage actually quite precise, and dare I say-- Katie very clever.

Nahhh.....

[ed]

Hmmmm.

But look at the numbers of **Asian** people in the House, Senate and White House!

There's at least, depending on who you count, 2+ billion Asians on this planet. By virtue of buggered percentages, bad math, holistic approach to virtual oppressed racial identity-speak and simple plain old ass covering I'd say that Asians are woefully underrepresented in politics.

Even more so than women.

So if women, according to Ms. Garp Couric, deserve 100% representation then Asians deserve 125% representation!

so there! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!

[Dwilkers]

I am still attempting to absorb the news that the US has not yet achieved the high standard set by Rwanda.

ROFL!

Yeah, you gotta love it when they toss in something like that. Just sits you back, makes you go W.T.F??!

Rwanda. Yeah, that's the ticket Katie. Go home now honey.

[Lew Clark]

If Katie is saddened by our advances in women's liberation being so far behind Rwanda, she must be petrified at how far behind Rwanda we are in hacking up our opponents with machetes.

[Terrye]

I hate to break it to Katie but the women's movement began a long time before 1970. Like almost a century before.

[maryrose]

Get over yourself Katie! Just because you are a network anchor in 3rd place doesn't mean you get to wax poetic on how the feminist movement has left all us gals behind. You should thank God everyday that you were not Deborah Norville replacing Jane Pauley. Norville is a much better journalist whom the media went after with their knives drawn. You just got lucky because of your renowned "perkiness" and flirtatious ways. You don't do interviews very well and when you subbed for Jay Leno your true lack of ability was on display for all to see. New Senator McCaskill said it best in talking with Diane Sawyer, who by the way is far superior to you; that women who make it into the Senate are tough. When you break that glass ceiling maybe I'll pay attention to you. As it is now-you don't speak for women everywhere.

[Dave]

As I was looking at my colleagues around the room—Charlie Gibson, George Stephanopoulos, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, Wolf Blitzer, and Brit Hume—I couldn’t help but notice, despite how far we’ve come, that I was still the only woman there

...but manlier than at least one of them.

watching televised golf for more than two hours shall be taken as conclusive evidence of brain death

[mark c.]

gracious, just whose jocular did she palpate?

[Enlightened]

Jeez, do Liberals EVER stop WHINING?

Had she just worn pants and uttered a witty rejoinder she may have felt far superior to her jocund tablemates, and may have altered the whole course of the palpable atmosphere.

She must not have scored high in the table ratings, thereby the pity party.

[windansea]

well hmmm...watching Tiger hit God like shots is certainly a better show than a 3rd rate "journalist" like Katie, and I use the quote marks generously

[Neo]

Would Katie have felt better if Brit Hume had showed up dressed in a kilt ?

[Neo]

Just when Katie has you thinking that only America doesn't do anything right, you get this.

[Dave]

Would Katie have felt better if Brit Hume had showed up dressed in a kilt ?

I think this would have been her reaction.

[TCO]

I echo sad. I think she knows what jocular means, not thinking that it means jockish. But that she implicitly as a PC person, doesn't like too much joking around. In addition, any joking around in a single sex crowd (and a not traumatized one) is likely to have a sexist edge. I know. Because I am (was) in an all male branch.

[JorgXMcKie]

I listen to a local CBS news radio station a lot, so I am all too frequently kind of a captive audience for something called Katie Couric's Journal or Katie's Rambling Thought-like Expressions or something. Honestly, words that come to mind are such as: sophomoric, jejune, quotidian . . . crap, drivel, mindless, droning . . . well, you get the idea.

Evidently she thinks that the stuff she reads (and, oh God, she may actually be writing this crap) show her to be both intellectually gifted and some sort of 'ordinary American.' It is pathetic.

[TCO]

Dosadai Experiment?

[TCO]

Gowachin = Karl Rove in lefty nightmares?

[MayBee]

Does Katie consider herself the titular leader of the group?

[TCO]

She is a Reve.

[topsecretk9]

Oh..the jocularity!

But of the people at the table, the “principals” in the meeting, I was the only one wearing a skirt. Everyone was gracious, though the jocular atmosphere was palpable.

Oh, leave it to a woman to ruin a perfectly good time.

Personally I LOVE IT when I am the only woman seated at a table with a bunch of men - mucky muck men? WAY better!

Actually, i'd prefer a meeting with JUST men to a meeting with JUST woman or even a magical PC balanced mix. You end up with a minimum of 45 minutes of unnecessary BS left with a feel good consensus OF NOTHING!

[lonetown]

I believe she meant, the jocular atmosphere was so fecund you could cut it with a chimera.

[Tom Maguire]

watching Tiger hit God like shots is certainly a better show than a 3rd rate "journalist" like Katie

I do have a clause noting a "Tiger Exception" when he is in contention on Sunday afternoon. And I did happen to watch (on TV) Van de Velde re-enact Tin Cup at the British Open.

[sad]

I echo sad. I think she knows what jocular means, not thinking that it means jockish.

My apologies for falling flat in the humor department. Let me be clear. As far as Couric is concerned, there is no "there" there.

[maryrose]

topsecretk9:
I also love it when it is a bunch of guys talking because it is so fun and interesting. Some of the best times in the faculty room come during these wild discussions. There is an absence of what guys call PWS- petty women shit.

[hit and run]

I also love it when it is a bunch of guys

Except on blogs. Then I much prefer the company of many wonderful women. But that's probably because JOM is rarely visited by PWS.

Although TCO can come close and Jeff absolutely exhibits it and sometimes cboldt gets in one of those moods ;-)

[ajacksonian]

topsecretk9 - You have just succinctly stated the results of every single staff meeting I have ever been involved in. Except the 45 minutes part... that is far too optimistic.

[windansea]

I do have a clause noting a "Tiger Exception"

golf is just physics and will power, Tiger has the most physically sound swing ever and a mind to match.

[Rick Ballard]

"Does Katie consider herself the titular leader of the group?"

Given that she's always at the tail in ratings, the (things aren't looking up) thrust of her remarks seems to be that that she still feels behind the men. Once she pulls abreast I'm this type of nonsense will end. That or the men will tell her to butt off.

[maryrose]

Katie has the off-putting stance of entitilement which is precocious and annoying. I never watched her on the Today Show and CBS News is way too biased for me. Who cares what she thinks. Much ado about nothing. Matt Lauer is the superior interviewer and Meredith has a better personality.

[syn]

My take on Couric's 1970's feminist movement

"Over 40 million babies aborted and we still don't rule the world!"

[sad]

Given that she's always at the tail in ratings, the (things aren't looking up) thrust of her remarks seems to be that that she still feels behind the men. Once she pulls abreast I'm this type of nonsense will end. That or the men will tell her to butt off.

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Funny, you're killing me!!!

[Extraneus]

Perhaps she feels inadequately copular around the men.

[Specter]

Katie who?

[Forbes]

Why would anyone (Katie?) know that bit of trivia regarding Rwanda?

And how long has it been the case that Rwanda has been so "progressive" regarding legislative representation by women?

Since the civil war which began in 1990, Rwanda has held one (1) post-genocidal presidential and legislative election--in 2003. Pursuant to a new constitution adpted on June 4, 2003, 30% of the 80-seat Council of Deputies are required to be filled by women.

Funny--funny/strange, not funny/haha--what some (Katie!) think relevent to a White House briefing prior to a Presidential address.

I imagine the other "principals" at the meeting were more interested in the information they were about to be briefed on, rather than the socio-cultural demographics they represented--as they were invited on the basis of their news reporting credentials, i.e. merit, rather than as representatives that "look like America".

One thing that can be said about Katie Couric--she will never disappoint to demonstrate her unsuitability for such a nightly newsreporter role. She is most nearly the opposite of serious journalist with unyielding focus on the events of our day, as her trivial diatribes and distractions amply illustrate.

[sad]

Katie is very informed and very serious --about Katie. A WH briefing is really --about Katie. The nightly news is all --about Katie, what she wears and how she does her hair. She is so busy with the business -- of Katie that she has no time to absorb the news of the day or reflect on new information, unless it is --about Katie.

But I could be wrong...

[hit and run]

Specter:

Katie who?

Posted by: Specter | January 18, 2007 at 10:28 AM

Did Katie Holmes pull a Britney/Lindsey/Paris? Not that I would click a link that purported to show it. No, I wouldn't dream of it. Wouldn't even be tempted by it. It is way beneath me.

Was there a link?