CBS Brings on Elizabeth Warren to Back More Bank Regulation; Spikes Cherokee Ancestry Controversy

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose and Erica Hill touted Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren's past time as "the government's chief watchdog during the 2008 bank bailout" as she was brought on to discuss JP Morgan Chase's $2 billion loss. Rose and Hill asked all of their questions from the left, and completely ommited any mention of the recent controversy over Warren's claim of Native American ancestry.

The anchor set up the Senate candidate to push for more regulations on banks without rebuttal: "It's appropriate to have some government oversight, and notwithstanding the fact that we're just coming out of this huge crisis." Hill even wondered if the banks themselves "should be broken up into smaller entities."

Rose began by mentioning only in passing that his guest was "the Democratic Senate candidate in that state [Massachusetts]." The liberal premise behind his first question was apparent: "What do you hope is the fallout from this, in terms of regulatory action?"

After Warren called for the resignation of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon from the New York Federal Reserve board of directors, the anchor followed up by noting that Dimon "said that he supported 75 percent [sic] of Dodd/Frank, which was a principal regulation to come out." The senate candidate laughed this off, and replied that "what we have to remember is Dodd/Frank itself was a compromise, and now, what's happened is that the large financial institutions, led by Jamie Dimon, have gone after the regulators....They've done everything they can to stick with the idea that...there's no need for anyone from the outside looking at them. And I think that's just fundamentally wrong. It's wrong and it's dangerous."

Later in the segment, Hill asked her question about whether the banks should be broken up. As you might expect, Warren all but endorsed this idea: "The irony is that I was here talking about the risks posed by the largest financial institutions in 2008 and 2009, we talked about too much concentration in the banking industry; and now, here we are in 2012 with more concentration in the banking industry. The big have gotten bigger, and that's a danger."

Besides omitting the ancestry issue, the morning newscast didn't mention that Dimon was among the most frequent visitors to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner during the months after his confirmation in 2009. The CEO was also complimented by President Obama in early 2009: "[T]here are a lot of banks that are actually pretty well managed; JP Morgan being a good example. Jamie Dimon, the CEO there; I don't think he should be punished for doing a pretty good job managing an enormous portfolio."

Exactly two weeks earlier, on April 30, CBS This Morning gave leftist New York Times columnist Paul Krugman a platform to call for massive government spending: "Now is not the time to be slashing....Now is the time to be doing public works, to be rehiring those school teachers, to get this economy moving again."

The full transcript of the interview of Elizabeth Warren, which began five minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour of Monday's CBS This Morning, can be found at MRC.org.