ATTENTION, FELLOW BLOGGERS

Please understand that no matter how high-minded you think you are, you're still a vulgar amateur and you'll never attain the high-minded seriousness of professional journalists like the New York Post's Andrea Peyser:

SHE LOOKED LIKE A LITTLE GIRL WHO HAD TO GO POTTY

KATIE COURIC last night underwent her second on-air colonoscopy....

For her very first night as CBS News diva, Katie spent a half-hour looking as if she desperately had to go potty....

Her face was Botoxed beyond normal human endurance, proving that even pampered, overpaid news babes possess the courage to suffer for their art.

And for the first time in history that a female was allowed to deliver a network's evening news alone, Katie chose to wear an unfortunate white blazer -- the result, no doubt, of some jokester lying to her face when Katie asked, "Does this make me look fat?"

And the day after Labor Day, to boot!

...The best that can be said about Katie Couric was that she did not trip over her 5-inch stiletto heels when she toddled across the floor of the set, crossing her bare legs like some ridiculous tramp.

The worst that can be said about Katie is that she did not fall flat on her face -- which would have provided a much-needed break in the tension....

I know what you're thinking, but this is distinguishable from Maureen Dowd. Dowd says glib and superficial things about the images of public figures, but she also writes about actual issues, and often what she says about public images concerns the real effect image manipulaton has on politics. She typically alternates insight and annoying triviality in the course of one column, as in today's. Yeah, the silly quips are there, but there's substance as well. Compared to Peyser, she's Plutarch.

The Peyser column, by contrast, is the verbal equivalent of one of those lily pond catfights on Dynasty.

*****

I don't really give a damn what happens to Couric in this new gig -- but the right is obsessed with her. To some extent, this is the result of the right's unhealthy fascination with celebrities; beyond that, there's a bizarre folk belief on the right that Couric is Hillary Clinton walking around in another woman's body. Whatever the cause, we have Ann Althouse writing,

Okay, I'm watching the Katie Couric show.

It's so annoying to feel forced into it!

And we have Mary Katharine Ham at Town Hall writing 768 words about how she's not going to watch Katie, so there. (This is headlined "The Obligatory Katie Post.")

People, please -- don't watch! It's OK! Nobody cares!