MRC president Brent Bozell appeared on The Kelly File on Fox News on Friday night to discuss the very limited TV coverage of Leon Panetta's book and its tough critique of President Obama's foreign-policy actions (and inaction).
Bozell said: “This is a bombshell. It is an absolute bombshell. Whether you agree with the policy or not, it's irrelevant. It's a bombshell when the secretary of defense says that the president has completely screwed up foreign policy.”
But MRC analysts found that from September 19 (the first CBS report on their 60 Minutes interview with Panetta) through Friday morning, the Big Three networks did little or nothing on the book on their newscasts. ABC had precisely zero stories. NBC offered one Today interview (and no clips thereafter). CBS offered one Evening News story, one 60 Minutes interview, and four segments on CBS This Morning.
KELLY: Bill Burton came out, I mean, Charlie Rose was right. Bill Burton has come out and called him small and petty, Joe Biden came out and said the time to write a book is not while the guy's in office. Both of those two guys on the other hand love, love, loved it when Scott McClellan, the Bush press secretary came out and wrote a critical book of his boss. But now they're very upset. But Charlie Rose has a substantial basis to say what he said. But the question is whether, you know, the media and those now criticizing Leon Panetta had the same outrage when McClellan did it to Bush.
BOZELL: Right. Right, Megyn, it's a double standard. When Scott McClellan came out with a book where he attack Bush's Iraq policy, it was called a bombshell by everybody. When Paul O'Neill, the secretary of the treasury, came out with a book, a scathing book, where he called George Bush “a blind man in a room full of deaf people,” which is much harder than anything Panetta said. Think about this. He got 17 times more coverage. And they all called him things like Katie Couric calling him a straight shooter. Nobody criticized him for that. That's what happens when you cover a Republican.
KELLY: Is there any difference because the Iraq war -- I mean, it was, you know, there's no question it was a much huger commitment at least at the time the book came out and the criticism came. And there were no weapons of mass destruction and so on, versus now, the point in time we are in Leon Panetta's, you know, the distance from his leaving office to what's happening overseas right now.
BOZELL: And, you know, Megyn, I might argue the other way around. Look at what we're looking at? We're looking at the biggest terror army in the history of the world right in front of us and everybody's been scratching their head and saying, “Where did they come from?” Now you have the secretary of defense saying we warned the president about this and they did nothing. So it's a huge story any way you look at it.
KELLY: Wow. It's amazing there's been no coverage especially on ABC. Brent, good to see you.
