NBC's Vieira Mouths Left-Wing Line on Bush-Era Consumer Protection

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NBC’s Meredith Vieira used a liberal talking point against the Bush administration on the Today show on Tuesday. Vieira asked  Inez Tenenbaum, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “Under President Bush, the Consumer Products Safety Commission was criticized for being too cozy with business- essentially, toothless. How do you assure the American public...that that’s no longer the case?”

The NBC morning anchor interviewed Commisioner Tenenbaum just after the beginning of the 7 am Eastern hour on the CPSC’s recall of 2.1 million drop-side baby cribs on November 23. Vieira tied-in the concerns of new parents about the safety of the cribs as she included the left-wing criticism of the government agency during the Bush era in her last question to the Obama appointee: “Under President Bush, the Consumer Products Safety Commission was criticized for being too cozy with business- essentially, toothless. How do you assure the American public, particularly parents out there that are worried, that that’s no longer the case?”

Tenenbaum gave a very generic answer to Vieira’s question: “Well, what we’re going to do is enforce every law that Congress has passed. And last year, it passed a sweeping new law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. We’re enforcing that law firmly but fairly.”

Earlier in 2009, Vieira acted as a liberal apologist during an interview of Fox News contributor Dick Morris. She touted another of the left’s sound bites when she proclaimed how “President Obama [was] lashing out at Wall Street and clamping down on corporate fat cats” during a Today show segment in February. She even went so far to share her “emotional” reaction to Obama’s inauguration (she specified that she was feeling “blissful’ that day).