CNN's Paula Zahn Cites NewsBusters' Brent Baker

MRC intern Michael Lanza caught a passing reference on the June 6 "Paula Zahn Now" to a June 5 blog entry by NB editor Brent Baker. (See transcript below the fold)

Video (0:35): Real (1.57 MB) or Windows (1.10 MB), plus MP3 (156 kB).

In "NBC's Williams Showcases Obama Blaming Bush for Black Despair Going Back to 1991," Baker noted that NBC's June 5 "Nightly News" ran excerpts of an Obama speech before running a story on the Democratic candidates and religious faith.

Excerpted below is the relevant portion of the blog, with the portion Zahn quoted shown in bold.:

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Tuesday decided to showcase a clip of Obama delivering a standard liberal critique of President Bush for not spending enough federal money on social programs. Williams relayed how “Obama said the Bush administration has done little to address what he called 'a quiet riot' of discontent and despair among blacks in this country, one that erupted in L.A. 15 years ago and has been building again since the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.”


In the clip, NBC viewers heard Obama issue the hardly unusual liberal talking point that “this administration was color blind in its incompetence” before he avoided holding those in question responsible for their own plight: “All the hurricane did was make bare what we ignore each and every day, which is that there are whole sets of communities that are impoverished, whole sets of communities that don't have meaningful opportunity and don't have hope and are forgotten.”

Here's Lanza's transcript of Zahn quoting Baker, along with some preceding sentences giving context.:

[8:18 p.m. EDT]

PAULA ZAHN, host: It started when a jury acquitted police officers in a brutal assault case in which the victim was a black motorist named Rodney King. But Obama says the unrest was growing long before that.

Sen. BARACK OBAMA (D-Ill.): Those riots did not erupt overnight. There had been a quiet riot building up in Los Angeles and across this country for years.

ZAHN: And Obama told the ministers these quiet riots are still happening today all over the country fueled by poverty, hopelessness, and despair.

OBAMA : That despair quietly simmers and makes it impossible to buildstrong communities and neighborhoods. And then one afternoon a jury says, ‘not guilty’ or a hurricane hits New Orleans and that despair is revealed for the world to see.

ZAHN: Now nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Obama insists our country still ignores communities that are impoverished and without hope.

OBAMA: Nothing really changes except the news coverage quiets down and Anderson Cooper’s on to something else. And the quiet riot keeps on.

ZAHN: Conservative blogs like ‘Newsbusters.org’ said Obama should blame Black communities themselves; that he ‘avoided holding those in question responsible for their own plight.’ (Quoting Brent Baker).