Bozell Column: Brian Williams, Shameless Partisan
“NBC Nightly News” is the highest-rated daily news show in the morning or evening. In mid-August, this show had been ranked number one for 100 straight weeks, pulling an average of 7.7 million viewers. This makes Brian Williams the king of the TV-news hill. To be sure, it’s obviously a smaller hill than the Walter Cronkite era, but in political terms, Williams, like Cronkite, is E.F. Hutton. His newscast can set the tone across the rest of the “news” media.
But all that royalty evaporates in the presence of Barack Obama. The contrast was jaw-dropping between Williams roaring like a lion against Obama’s Republican challengers at the Reagan Library on September 7, and then bowing gently like a lamb at the White House three days later.
In California, Williams blasted Gov. Rick Perry with this question: “Texas ranks last among those who have completed high school, there are only eight other states with more living in poverty, no other state has more working at or below the minimum wage. So is that the kind of answer all Americans are looking for?”
Later, Williams went at Perry again: “As you know, your state ranks among the worst in the country in high school graduation rates, as we established. Yet, you recently signed a budget cut for billions in education funding, you pushed for greater cuts than were in the budget that the legislature passed. You’ve said that education is a top priority, but explain cutting it the way you did, please?”
But Williams’ absolute worst moment arrived when he lost all sense of objectivity and fairness on the death penalty issue. “Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?”
Williams didn’t just hammer Perry, he also repeatedly pounded Ron Paul like a haughty Swedish socialist to defend his libertarian views. He even lectured Rick Santorum that as a “devout Catholic,” he was supposed to care for the poor, so “where do the poor come in, where do they place in this party, on this stage?”
Then Brian Williams went back to Washington, DC.
Less than 72 hours later, Williams was calmly asking Obama to assess the tenth anniversary of 9/11 like he was Father of the Country. He also asked Obama what it’s like for the President and Mrs. Obama to walk through Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery, where the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan rest.
This would be unexceptional on such a solemn occasion...if NBC had done that for George W. Bush on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Guess what? They didn’t. Matt Lauer secured a Bush interview in 2006, and fought him throughout the entire thing, first on Iraq, and then on Iran.
For example, Lauer began: “In recent speeches, you and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld have seemed to indicate that people who are critics of your policy in Iraq are in some ways trying to appease terrorists. Do you know of any Democrats that, in your opinion, are trying to or would like to appease terrorists?”
In the last few weeks, President Obama has jetted around the country insisting that the Republicans aren’t willing to put the good of the country ahead of their need to win politically. He’s going from city to city questioning their patriotism. But Brian Williams and all his fellow servants in the Hope and Change Brigade have no problem with that, and don’t ask about it.
Instead – and this is where the jaws should drop – Williams chose to inquire about why the Republicans couldn’t be statesmen like Obama on the debt-ceiling debate. Ask yourself on which planet does Williams think the following kind of question to Obama matches the way he “moderated” the GOP debate:
“All of this, of course, is if you get what you want in a highly toxic atmosphere, and it sure looked to me from the outside like you went into the debt ceiling fight thinking, ‘Surely they will do the statesmanlike thing. Surely they won't go there.’ And it seemed to me as if Speaker Boehner was coming to you, saying, ‘Look, if it were up to me we would do this, but I've got this membership problem.’ And they went there, and now that marks our politics.”
Move over, Jay Carney. Obama is auditioning press secretaries on the most popular nightly newscast in America.
Let’s turn that hopelessly obsequious softball around on Williams. The viewer, after watching Williams swinging a baseball bat at Republican heads on MSNBC, could say “Surely, Brian will do the hard-hitting fair-and-balanced anchorman thing. Surely he won’t go there, prostrate at Obama’s feet. But he went there, and now that marks our journalism.”
- Brent Bozell's blog
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Comments
Well don't forget Brian
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 10:18pm.
Well don't forget Brian Williams literally bowed to Obama....
Can you imaging him saying to Obama: You spent $850 billion in stimulus, and said it would keep unemployment from hitting 8%...unemployment is now over 9%.....why should we trust you on this "jobs" plan?
He knows his place.
But the good news?
Submitted by KornKing on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 10:37pm.
"Our pollsters are concerned"
meet me at the mission at midnight
we will forget brian williams and obama
Submitted by ohio granny on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 10:49pm.
We will forget Brian Williams. We will not watch NBC, CBS, or ABC news at all. We will forget all of them. They have become totally irrelevant, biased news readers.
After Nov. 2012 when Obama is defeated we will forget about him. We will then remember him every time we have to clean up a disaster he and his cronies leave behind. We will be grateful he is no longer in a position to do any more harm to this once great country.
Working in round numbers, Briny's already done!
Submitted by neutron on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 12:16am.
So, let's see, Briny Williams averages 7.7M viewers per night. For easy numbers, let's round that up to 8M viewers. Out of 300M Americans, that's 2.67% who are watching NBC news.
If memory serves, 17% of Americans are devout "9/11 truthers." Also, something like 30% are Dems. and about 2.7% watch NBC news.
I think Briny's viewers are the hardcore left who love their political porn that is especially written to excite them and rub their buttons. Which buttons? Well, Briny cliticizes the Tea Party and Reps, while lavishing lingual praise on Dems and O'Bama (who is not a Muslim). That should excite the dimwits who prefer Punch & Judy news to reality.
Let it go, and let them be. If the LSM were still powerful, the reset election of 2010 would never have happened. If the LSM (dinosaur media) is not impotent, then O'Bama (who is not a Muslim) will win in a landslide, and the Dems will have veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate. And that just will not happen.
The MSM is not the beast it
Submitted by Kenny Bunkport on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 10:13am.
The MSM is not the beast it once was, but it is far from impotent. In 2008, the MSM was responsible for the Dems dumping Hillary for the more charismatic Marxist Obama. Then they put up the straw man in the form of McCain for the Republicans. The MSM selected our president in 2008.
The fact that Republicans won the House in 2010 is only indicative of the utter failure of the Democrats. The MSM still owns the political narrative.
Don't just blame the MSM....
Submitted by Don L on Thu, 09/15/2011 - 6:14am.
Let's not give the MSM total credit for doing what the GOP leftist machine in Washington full well intended to do. (Put in the "my friends across the isle" RINO)
They still haven't demanded (no convention vote as penalty) that the primary crossover vote no longer be allowed to help insure that the RINOs are always the GOP candidate.
Didn't anyone notice how they are all excoriating Sarah Palin to allow their chief RINO Mitt Romney the candidacy?
We have a lot of enemies in America -not all are Democrats.
How would we know?
Submitted by GerryC on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 10:53pm.
How would we know Williams said this if MRC didn't tell us?
My Lord, who even watches TV anymore? TV has never been worse than today. I turned it off the day OhBummer was elected. I can't stand any of it. To think my country elected a community organizer, with zero business experience, to President was shocking then. And now we see the results.
A Repeat comment
Submitted by KornKing on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 10:57pm.
from a friend of mine "Msnbc manages to piss me off doing the weather"
"Auditions" are Over
Submitted by Chris Norman on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:24pm.
"Move over, Jay Carney. Obama is auditioning press secretaries on the most popular nightly newscast in America."
I would only argue that Brian Williams isn't auditioning to be the next WH Press Secretary. For all practical purposes, he already is the main Obama Press Secretary. He just relays the Obama message from the NBC News studios instead of the WH Press Office. He's also replaced David Axelrod as chief WH attack dog. Jay Carney, in comparison, is just a little-known junior assistant press secretary working the day shift, when compared to Williams, Sawyer, and Pelley.
RIP Journalism.
Submitted by averageschmoe on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:18pm.
I have a degree in Journalism & Communications and like my fellow former J & C graduates and I say all the time. "Journalism is dead in America, RIP Journalism."
Lean Forward,
Submitted by Bodini on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:37pm.
bend over, bow to the Messiah, and don't forget to wiggle your ears Brian so BO can feel the tingle as ya'll "move-on" with your head firmly stuck up his back-side!
Texas last - completed HS - Well, CA is 3rd from last.
Submitted by Gary Hall on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:37pm.
Texas last - completed HS. Well, CA is 3rd from last.
What does that tell you?
Democrats run one state, Republicans run the other one - both have horrific illegal immigration issues.
Obama's going to make them all this way.
(;~/ gary
agree
Submitted by grammajane on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:52pm.
Why do tax-payers need to pay Carney when the WH has almost every "news reporter" on tv reporting daily on his numerous accomplishments?? Williams would do better in a soap opera with all his drama or on late night, trying to be funny. He gets worse by the evening!!
The highest-rated daily news show for NBC. Is a joke, right?
Submitted by gruyere cheese on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:54pm.
“NBC Nightly News” is the highest-rated daily news show in the morning or evening. In mid-August, this show had been ranked number one for 100 straight weeks, pulling an average of 7.7 million viewers
Where the hell do 7.7 million viewers come from? From the terminals at the airport, the dentist office, or maybe the gym? It calculates like fuzzy math to me, but I digress.
97% of the country doesn't watch Brian
Submitted by Red Jeep on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 12:16am.
.
→ He's no Dan Rather
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 11:55pm.
Any liberal anchor worth his own pavlovian secretion should be willing to fabricate evidence against the Republican opponent.
Brian, get on that old Selectric and type us up some evidence!
This Evening's was even worse.
Submitted by joinamerica on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 12:06am.
My gym had Williams on tonight. He slammed Rick Perry, allowed Michelle Bachmann to slam Perry again on the danger of the HPC vaccine, then had NBC's own Medical Editor discuss the danger of the shot,. Dr. Nancy Snyderman clearly and decisively stated that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the CDC, all came out today and stated that the vaccine has proved to have a "tremendously good safety record" and that it would save 4,000 lives per year. Williams said not one word. He was speechless. The man is dishonest down to his core.
Brian Williams Wasn't "Bowing" For Obama....
Submitted by Samaritan01 on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 1:07am.
....he was, in fact, bending over. The left is fraught with cowardice and none of them have the spine to argue with the worst President in my lifetime.
If you don't like looking at
Submitted by jdhawk on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 1:09am.
If you don't like looking at clowns, don't go to the circus. Our party is nuts to cow-tow to these socialists hacks. Just say no! We have plenty of news outlets that we can have a debate at and we will garner more viewers, too.
Hey! I have a novel idea. Why not do a completly Internet debate. Have it at a promient place, but bypass the lamestream networks altogether. Have the next debate entirely on the web with our commentators asking the questions.
The idea behind these debates is to educate the country on the conservative principles. Giving our principles a fair hearing instead of answering back biting obnoxious questions from a socialist and a socialist's point of view. Get conservative commentators to ask the question that will bring out what we stand for and what we want for America.
The countries problems are too big and urget to have Bachmann all over Perry about innoculations that one could opt out of in the first place. We are just giving the dimocRATS ammunition. Remember, O'bummer doesn't have anyone running against him. So, we have to order these debates in that light.
Continue the debates in the enemy camp.
Submitted by Don L on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 7:40am.
Surely you recognize the fact that the other side will certainly ask, as crudely, the very same obnoxious questions. If you'd consider this stuff a boot camp for candidates, it'll make more sense and also has the added value of having the issue addressed well before the election-giving the candidate time to develop sound responses -even kick back responses that require the accusatory questioner to lose the issue.
The right response is to publically ask the questioner up front, why he never did his constitutional responsibility by asking Obama the same tough questions.
It would sound something like this.
"Why did you never ask Obama, why he wants to kill fully born babies, when this was well known, long before he became our president?"
I don't remember
Submitted by HockeyKid on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 6:32am.
where or when I first encountered the phrase "biased media whore", but Brian Williams is certainly its epitome.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
The Iron Curtain Media
Submitted by Don L on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 7:20am.
Let's face it, we in America have what could only be rationally called, an "Iron Curtain media" whereby, there is no difference between, what is said about the powers in control of the government and what the powers in control of the government want to have said about them.
An objective media, as understood by the framers of our constitution, gives to them the sole responsibility and protection for one purpose only; to keep in check any government that would chose to abuse its power.
Such is to be accomplished through the objective and timely disseminating of information, that free people may react properly, both through through their representative's powers of impeachment and the ballot box that all in government might seek fairness in executing their loaned powers.
Instead we now have the coddle press, complete with thrills down their legs for power seekers that more aptly fit the model of those governments so reminiscent of the old Soviet iron curtain.
The White House collection of enemies lists reeks of jack boots and salt mines, while the opposing party seeks to protect only the status quo.
B.Will does not want to be...
Submitted by USMC8411 on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 2:51pm.
UNEMPLOYED like Cenk-off Uighur is for daring to criticize the big eared, thin skinned, current occupant of the WH.
Perhaps it is the Border?
Submitted by Mutantone on Thu, 09/15/2011 - 10:10am.
“Texas ranks last among those who have completed high school, there are only eight other states with more living in poverty, no other state has more working at or below the minimum wage. So is that the kind of answer all Americans are looking for?”
and of that number how many illegals did they interview for their count?