Great Slappers in History: Couric vs. Patton

New York Magazine’s profile of Katie Couric is already famous for her admission that she repeatedly slapped a staffer on the arm after he put the word "sputum" in her script a few weeks back, sputum being a word she struggled with and didn’t like. The piece is otherwise pretty admiring of Couric. On Drudge’s radio show the other night, New York Mag’s Joe Hagan said that he found Couric to be something few TV celebrities are: unassuming, down-to-earth. I like her more after his piece, I think I’m going to switch from Brian Williams…

It’s interesting to compare the Couric slapping episode with the other great slapper of American history: General George Patton. In the summer of 1943, the General visited a hospital in Sicily and slapped two shell-shocked soldiers whom he regarded as cowardly. One of the kids was 21 and had been on the front for four years, till his buddy was wounded and he asked for a rest. He was blubbering. The other kid was also trembling. Patton hit both men in the face with his gloves. He reportedly knocked the blubbering kid’s helmet liner off.

There are some similarities in the Couric and Patton episodes. Both cases distressed subordinates (the hospital staff were in turmoil over Patton’s behavior). In both cases, a few media insiders knew about the incidents. Eisenhower managed to suppress the Patton story till the popular columnist Drew Pearson blew the case open three months later. In the Couric case, a lot of people at CBS knew about the incident, but it took Joe Hagan to expose it, about a month after. And in both cases, the slappers freely admitted their conduct, and defended it.

It would seem that people were far more outraged over "Georgie" Patton’s behavior than they are over Couric’s, even in this hyper-sensitive age. Patton lost his command. Of course it’s possible that Couric will lose hers, too. But if that happens, the Patton analogy bodes well for her. The greatest "ground gainer" of the European war, Patton was too valuable to Eisenhower to stay demoted. Command was restored, and Patton returned to glory in Germany. Though he died freakishly, in a Cadillac, on a hunting trip in Germany in 1945, Patton passed into American legend, outstripping  all his classmates at West Point ’09. I get the feeling Katie Couric’s slapping chapter will help her in the end.

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