It appears that even Andrea Mitchell doesn’t watch MSNBC. During Tuesday's edition of her eponymous program, while speaking to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, the anchor failed to acknowledge former Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) strong repudiation for comments made by an attendee at one of his campaign events over the weekend.
While the presidential hopeful did not initially correct the woman’s allegations that President Obama was a devout Muslim who was illegally occupying the White House, appearing on Morning Joe today, Santorum strongly condemned such rhetoric as being bizarre and out of touch with reality. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Apparently Andrea didn't get the memo. Mitchell’s ignorance of her own network is just another example of her attempts to paint Republicans as bigots and continues to lower her journalistic credibility.
Below is an exerpt from Andrea Mitchell Reports and the earlier statement from Senator Rick Santorum on Morning Joe.
Andrea Mitchell Reports
01/24/2012
1:03Andrea Mitchell: Ryan Lizza, there's a lot of ugliness in this campaign as we’ve all been noting, and particularly there was an event, a moment with a woman at a Rick Santorum event in Florida yesterday, who in Lady Lake, Florida, questioned the President's religion and interestingly, unlike John McCain four years ago, candidate Santorum did not push back. I want to play that tape for you.
Morning Joe
01/24/2012
7:06 am
John Heilmann: Well I think that's certainly possible and I think actually Senator Santorum is going to need to do more than he's done so far to exploit the support of evangelical leaders that came out in favor of him in Texas. But I actually want ask him, Senator Santorum, a question about something that happened yesterday in Florida. You were, you did a town hall meeting down in, at an American Legion hall in Lady Lakes, Senator. And there was a questioner who asked you about, about, who started by with the premise that President Obama is not legally qualified to be President and called him an avowed Muslim. Uh, you didn’t respond to that. You’re taking some criticism for that. I’m wondering whether you wanna speak to that here today.
Rick Santorum: Guys, I've spoken of that repeatedly throughout the course of this campaign. Everybody else has, too. I've said repeatedly that I don't believe President Obama is a Muslim and he's qualified. This was an elderly lady, she was there leaning on a cane, she was quite wobbly and I'm not going to sit and slam an older lady because she has some way-out, you know, some bizarre beliefs. I mean that’s just, you know, it's your responsibility to defend the President, not mine. I've made my position clear on this issue. And, I don't know why you guys are so fixated on making sure Republicans, and every time somebody says something, that the media don't believe it's true and I don’t believe its true, that it's my responsibility. But when the media and others say lies about me and call me names and do things that it’s okay and that in fact it’s promoted and encouraged and made fun of when we do it, stop it. We’re not here, I'm not here to defend the President. And against you know, scurrilous attacks. It's not my job. Any more than you seem it's your job to defend me against scurrilous attacks.
