During Thursday night's edition of CNN's “Piers Morgan Tonight,” the liberal host harshly criticized President Barack Obama and his administration for allowing the National Security Agency to secretly obtain the telephone records of millions of Americans.
While interviewing Senator Bernie Sanders, Morgan asked the socialist from Vermont if he believed Obama's actions on surveillance are “worse than anything George W. Bush did.”
The CNN host led up to his question by quoting the editorial board of the New York Times, which stated on Thursday that the administration “has now lost all credibility on this issue.”
Has what Barack Obama been doing -- and his administration -- not just with all these revelations in the last 24 hours, but also the IRS, going after AP and FOX News, and so on, has what he's been doing worse than anything George W. Bush did?
Sanders took advantage of the opportunity to criticize the previous Republican president by stating:
Well, I think Bush started the process, and what I had hoped, and I think millions of Americans had hoped, that Barack Obama, who knew something about constitutional law, would not only change Bush's policies in a number of ways but certainly with regard with civil liberties.
“I think it's fair to say that many of us are deeply disappointed that he did not end many of those programs and provide a lot more transparency than he has,” the senator added.
Morgan responded: “You could argue he was right to say he'd be different. He's worse!”
During another segment of the hour-long program, the host spoke with Christine Quinn about the NSA's “snooping,” and he told the New York City mayoral candidate:
To me, this looks like the single greatest attack on civil liberties and privacy of Americans I’ve ever seen,
“Look, I can understand how it would look that way,” Quinn replied. “We don't know what this is because we don't know what we don't know. And it is really incumbent upon the Senate and the Congress to answer the questions about what has happened here.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, this isn't the first time Piers Morgan criticized Obama. In mid-May, the liberal host slammed the president for not following through on his promise that he and his administration would be transparent in their activities.
The liberal host has been on a crusade to outlaw assault-style guns since July 20, when James Holmes broke into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and used tear gas grenades and multiple firearms to kill 12 people and injure 58 others who came to see the midnight showing of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.”
His efforts to undermine the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution got a boost on Dec. 14, when Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Nevertheless, Morgan got some good news on May 29, when the ratings for his CNN show surpassed those of his 9 p.m. rival, Rachel Maddow. To mark the occasion, he taunted the MSNBC anchor with a Tweet that said “Oooops.”
The big question now is: How long will it take for Morgan to return to the Obama fold? After all, MSNBC's Chris Matthews criticized the Democratic president for only a few weeks before returning to his liberal roots. Can Morgan be far behind?
