National Review’s John Fund wrote an opinion piece Sunday about the way the media have gone after Rudy Giuliani’s recent comments questioning Obama’s love for America, and that the same standard of “gotcha” questions should also be held to the same standards for liberals as they are with conservatives.
He writes that Giuliani’s “foolish words” were now being used as “gotcha” questions to every Republican being interviewed by the liberal media -- their thoughts on Giuliani’s comments, whether or not they themselves agreed with those comments, or whether or not Obama is a Christian (a Washington Post add-on for Scott Walker, who hosted the event featuring Giuliani's Obama remarks.) Even those in the liberal media have spoken out about this even being “newsworthy”:
NBC’s Chuck Todd, the host of Meet the Press, made clear that he “hated this story in so many ways.” Nonetheless, he led his show with it. On one level, he’s right that such stark attacks are “eventually network and cable catnip” for the media. Fair enough. But ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Todd’s Sunday-show counterpart and a former Clinton aide, at least acknowledged the obvious: “There does seem to be a little bit of a double standard here. The Republicans tend to get asked these questions about their outliers more than Democrats are.”
Fund uses Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, as an example. Speaking about Giuliani’s comments, she had the audacity to accuse Republican candidates of being “accomplices to “nonsense” unless each and every one repudiated Giuliani.” (Interesting statement coming from the same woman who said that Scott Walker has “has given women the back of his hand,” she said, using slang for a backhanded slap. “I know that is stark. I know that is direct. I know that is reality.” Incidentally, no Democrat repudiated her for these controversial comments.)
He gives other examples too. Take the "constant head-shaking gaffe machine” known as Vice President Joe Biden. Fund notes that reporters “never asked prominent Democrats if Biden should stop touching women without their consent.” And what about the man outrageous statements he’s made? There are too many to count.
As Fund writes:
“Media watchers often say that the real bias in the profession isn’t in how a story is covered, but in which stories the media chooses to focus on and which they ignore or actively suppress…The point here is not that reporters shouldn’t have pursued Rudy Giuliani’s intemperate remarks or that they shouldn’t have asked fellow Republicans about them. It is that the hallmark of real professionalism is to recognize that what’s “gotcha” for the conservative goose should be “gotcha” for the liberal gander. Treating both sides equally also makes for good drama, as anyone can tell if they watch White House press secretary Josh Earnest flail around trying to explain why Barack Obama’s 2008 remark that George W. Bush’s debt policies were “unpatriotic” were different from Giuliani’s recent comments.”
Agreed.
Could you imagine if any reporters actually asked Democratic leaders “gotcha” questions?
During her acceptance speech at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette stood on stage and voiced her support for equal pay for women (this coming from a millionaire.) Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask Hillary Clinton her thoughts on that statement? After all, Clinton is the “champion” for women’s rights and fighting the “war on women,” (though ironically when she was a senator, she paid women 72 cents for each dollar paid to men. Oh, and she’s also coming under scrutiny for her mostly male presidential campaign.) Boy oh boy - no pun intended - what a “gotcha” question that would be to ask Clinton or her Democratic counterparts!
