Frank Rich: Joy Behar Is The New Edward R. Murrow

To prove that leftists have developed great audacity in the field of accusing the liberal media of being Republican lapdogs, New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote Sunday that the press was so awful, Joy Behar was the new Edward R. Murrow. Talk about a low blow. Here it is:

You know the press is impotent at unmasking this truthiness when the hardest-hitting interrogation McCain has yet faced on television came on "The View." Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word "lies" to his face. The McCains are so used to deference from "the filter" that Cindy McCain later complained that "The View" picked "our bones clean." In our news culture, Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.

Rich clearly betrays here that he hasn't watched some of Behar's Greatest Hits, like her suggesting that Sen. Tim Johnson's cerebral hemorrhage might have been a Republican plot. On the other hand, Murrow is seriously over-hallowed as the essence of quality television news, when he's closer to the CBS Dan Rather-Kinko's Copies hatchet-job norm. So consider it an overdue reevaluation of Murrow's hackdom.

Rich also complains that the network news hasn't been aggressive in following up The Washington Post's latest whack at Cindy McCain's prescription-drug addiction. He doesn't mention whether the network news has done anything on Obama's youthful use of cocaine.