NB's Graham Slams Steve Kroft's Embarrassing Softball Chat with Obama & Hillary

CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft "ought to hand in his journalism card" if there actually were such a thing, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham concluded in an interview with substitute host Eric Bolling on the January 28 edition of Your World w/Neil Cavuto. Graham was referring to the January 27 puff piece that the newsmagazine aired in which Kroft failed to ask any tough questions of the president and his departing secretary of state.

"Look, this is Steve Kroft's history," Graham told Bolling. "This is the reason why we wrote a report called 'Syrupy Minutes.' With the Democrats, this is what they do." And yet, "This is the same show that broke Abu Ghraib on Bush's head. This is the same show that tried to destroy Bush with fake National Guard records." [MP3 audio here; video embedded below page break]

"They were very obvious right from the beginning" of the interview when Kroft noted, "Mr. President, this was your idea," the veteran Media Research Center (MRC) staffer argued. "So, obviously, all he does is he calls CBS and says, 'I want to do this interview, make it soft and syrupy' and they say, 'Yes, sir, we'll get right on that.'"

"Sure, the mainstream media is becoming almost like the media wing of the White House," Bolling offered.

Graham agreed, citing CBS political director John Dickerson -- himself infamous for arguing that President Obama needs to "declare war" on the GOP -- gushing this morning that the 60 Minutes piece was "a good way after that tough hearing on Benghazi... a good image for Hillary to end her tenure with."

How the folks at CBS see their job "is to be a palette cleanser for Hillary Clinton's career," the MRC's director of media analysis quipped.