Albright Critical of Presidential Campaign Media Coverage; Blames Minnesota Bridge Collapse on Iraq War

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright isn’t impressed with the blow-by-blow horse race coverage of the primary season and blames the media.

Albright revealed that to an audience January 19 at a Borders bookstore in Tysons Corner, Va., outside of Washington, D.C., to promote her new book “Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership.”

She said the media weren’t asking the right questions when it came to assessing the candidate’s “critical thinking skills.”

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“I think it is very important to discuss your critical thinking skills. What hasn’t happened is that – and I hate to always go in this direction – is the media has to do a better job of asking the questions instead of, you know, always looking for some fight and to have the capability of actually having a discussion.”
Albright also compared the media coverage of the presidential primary to the coverage of the 2000 Bush/Gore race.

“In the last campaign between Vice President [Al] Gore and Governor [George W.] Bush, people were saying, ‘Who is nicer? Who is more pleasant to be with?’ So … I really think the important thing is to try to assess the critical thinking skills and the approach to issues.”

On NBC’s January 8 “Today,” Albright revealed she was working with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Clinton had faced criticism, which was heavily covered by the media, for saying the successes in the civil right's movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. were due in large part to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

At the appearance, Albright also attempted to connect last year’s Minnesota bridge collapse, among other things, to the Iraq war – days after the National Transportation Safety Board determined the bridge collapsed from a design flaw.

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“I think what we’re seeing as a result of a huge budget and a huge deficit are a number of problems in terms of being able to fund programs,” Albright said. “I’m not an expert on health care, but issues of Social Security, health care, infrastructure – I mean, we just heard about the bridge issue in Minneapolis – and various aspects. The war is costing an incredible amount of money and we do have to have a defense budget that supports our military. But, I think the cost of the war – is incremental in every way – has added to the increase of the deficit.”