Stephanie Miller Labels Medved’s Claim of Media Bias a ‘Myth’ on CNN

Liberal talk radio host Stephanie Miller laughed-off Michael Medved’s accusation that the John Edwards sex scandal "reinforces the conviction that a lot of Americans have that the news media aren't on the level, that they're biased" on Tuesday’s American Morning: "You know, this is the myth again... of this, you know, liberal media. It's ridiculous. You can't report something that you don't have evidence on, you know. Until Edwards admitted this, there was no hard evidence. It's not something that you would report."

Earlier, Miller had jokingly, perhaps rudely, that the earlier rumors of the scandal were akin to someone making a wild accusation against Medved: "I know and love Michael and I'm tempted to say something completely unsubstantiated about his personal life right now and see if he can disprove it." Medved initially replied with a mere smile and a mild chuckle.

The two talk radio hosts appeared in a discussion segment which began 24 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour of the CNN program. Co-host Kiran Chetry, reacting to Miller, echoed her sentiment: "Yeah. I mean -- and just in fairness, CNN was investigating this as well and, you know, there just weren't simply enough facts to go with it." I guess Miller and the folks at CNN didn’t take the report and photos of Edwards being at a California hotel with his mistress and alleged love child seriously.

Chetry continued and asked Medved, "And the other interesting thing is when you pay sources, I mean, do you get different reporting, Michael?" He replied, "Well, sure, sure you do. But the point about this is that Rielle Hunter, the principal involved, had said to a number people that Edwards was father of her baby. I mean, look, this whole thing is seemly -- unseemly. It's unpleasant..."

After the two debated the presidential race for the second part of the segment, Chetry briefly returned to the Edwards at the very end:

CHETRY: Michael before you leave, I just want to ask Michael to please elaborate a little bit on what you said earlier. You said that Rielle Hunter was telling people that John Edwards was the father of her child.

MEDVED: Yes, she was. I mean, again, that's what she said.

CHETRY: According to whom?

MEDVED: According to the National Enquirer and actually, according to a number of people who came forward and said that they had heard from this lady who, after all, got $114,000 from the Edwards' campaign for making videos that for which she had no experience and traveled around the world, to Africa and elsewhere with Edwards. Edwards is irrelevant right now. He's not going to be on the ticket. I think he probably will have a political future after we go through this whole process of forgiveness and what have you. But I do think that Edwards' situation illustrates to people why it's important to look at somebody who isn't completely narcissistic, driven by ego and self love and self regard, and that's a weakness for Obama. People do have a sense that this is a guy who's rather deeply in love with himself and that's not necessarily an attractive feature in a presidential nominee.

MILLER: (Laughs)

CHETRY: Stephanie, I know you don't agree.

MILLER: (Laughs) Wow. That's brand-new in politics, someone with an ego. Wow.

MEDVED: (Laughs)

CHETRY: I want to thank both of you for being with us. Stephanie Miller and Michael Medved, thank you.

MILLER: Thank you.