Today Show Hastens to Help Harriet with Puff Piece on W’s Support for “Strong Women”

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If you can tell a lot about a person by their friends and enemies, then it should be revealing to see how people are lining up on the Miers nomination.

On the enemies [or shall we say ‘serious doubters’] side: Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Mark Levin and Terence Jeffrey.

On the ‘friends’ side: Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and, as of this morning, the Today show.

We put Today in the 'friends' category because friendship, or at least advocacy of the Miers nomination, can be the only possible explanation for the puff piece Today ran this morning on President Bush’s support for “strong women.”

A red flag should have immediately gone up when David Gregory, who normally spends his days antagonizing Scott McClellan in the WH press room, introduced the segment with this bouquet to W’s feminism:

"[Miers is] only the latest powerful woman in the Bush administration to move into the spotlight. Over the last five years President Bush has made a habit of revising the old adage ‘behind ever great man there’s a great woman’ by putting women right beside him."

With the graphic “All the President’s Women’ on the screen [words that would have had an altogether different meaning in the previous administration], Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson certified W’s feminist credentials:

“He’s very comfortable with strong women. I believe he thinks as a father of daughters that women should have an equal place in our society.” Cue the Oprah theme music!

We were then treated to a laundry list [no pun intended] of the "strong women" in W's administration, from Condi, to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, to Karen Hughes.

Gregory assured us that “all are strong-minded women, unafraid to voice their opinions, not unlike women in the president’s own family," as images of Barbara and Laura flashed on the screen, along with a clip of Laura saying back in July that she hoped W nominated a woman.

Continued Gregory, persisting in his new vocation of Bush cheerleader: "observers say the trust placed in these women is not political pandering but a show of true support for their abilities." Gregory couldn't resist one gratuitous swipe at W, adding that his support for women is "an image at odds with the caricature of a back-slapper and former frat boy."

The final 'friend' brought on to certify W's feminist bona fides was John Dickerson of left-leaning Slate.com.

Opined Dickerson: "it doesn’t matter what people may think of this president or of the job these individual women might have done in the positions they’ve had. It’s clear that the president has put them in their positions because he believes in their merit."

For conservatives, the calvacade of MSM boosters of the Miers nomination should throw up more red flags than the number on display at the Kremlin on a Stalin May Day.

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Finkelstein has degrees from Cornell University and Harvard Law
School.He lives in Ithaca, NY where he hosts "Right Angle," a local
political talk show. Finkelstein specializes in exposing liberal bias
at NBC's Today Show.