Unlike his former colleague Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein has once again shown he is no longer a serious journalist but instead a Republican-bashing liberal pundit. Bernstein, who has consistently bashed the Republican Party as “extremist” has now turned to calling them anti-women.
Appearing on Thursday’s Jansing and Co., Bernstein was highly critical of Mitt Romney’s comments about hiring female members of his cabinet while he was Governor of Massachusetts. [See video below break. MP3 audio here.]
Bernstein’s remarks came in response to comments Romney made during Tuesday night’s presidential debate in which he said:
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.
Host Chris Jansing threw a softball to Bernstein to allow his rant to begin by asking:
When you hear the Democrats, you heard the president yesterday, Carl; they see an opening after this binder comment. Is there an opening? And if so, how big is it?
Bernstein responded to Romney’s comments by saying:
The real issue is civil rights for women, equal pay for women. The Republican Party has been against this. They're against the Ledbetter act, which provides as a civil rights, a civil right for women, equal pay for women. And Romney's trying to evade it.
Unfortunately, Bernstein doesn’t seem to know that the Lilly Ledbetter Act does not ban pay discrimination based on gender. Since 1963, the federal government has banned such discrimination with passage of the Equal Pay Act. The Lilly Ledbetter Act simply resets the statue of limitations for each new pay check if pay discrimination has occurred.
Republican opposition to Ledbetter has been its promotion of unnecessary lawsuits brought against companies, when since 1963 pay discrimination has been illegal.
Bernstein continues his anti-Republican rant later on in the segment by proclaiming that:
We now have a candidate of a major party, a party that is way outside the mainstream in terms of its representation in Washington, a radical party such as we've never had in our history, literally in our modern history never had such a radical party in Washington, D.C.
Rather than follow in the footsteps of respected -- albeit liberal-leaning -- journalist Bob Woodward, Bernstein has instead decided to become just another hack liberal commentator on MSNBC, more interesting in pressing liberal Democratic talking points than reporting and analyzing campaign news.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC
Jansing and Co.
October 18, 2012
10:00 a.m. EDT
CHRIS JANSING: The presidential candidates are taking their debate hostility on the road and focusing squarely on women, not just in their stump speeches but in ads, conference calls, on social media. The president has now worked Governor Romney's binder comment into his stump speech. Here he is yesterday in Ohio.
BARACK OBAMA: I've got to tell you, we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women ready to learn and teach in these fields right now.
JANSING: Governor Romney is pushing back, saying the real problem is the economy.
MITT ROMNEY: This president has failed America's women. They've suffered in terms of getting jobs. They've suffered in terms of falling into poverty.
JANSING: Joining me now, investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, a contributor to “The Daily Beast" and Nia-Malika Henderson, political reporter with The Washington Post. Good morning to both of you. I mean, there was never any doubt women were going to be key in this election. And until recently Mitt Romney had been making real gains in the polls. We'll see what they do after this second debate. But obviously, when you hear the Democrats, you heard the president yesterday, Carl; they see an opening after this binder comment. Is there an opening? And if so, how big is it?
CARL BERNSTEIN: I think there's a huge difference between the two candidates. I think binder is trivializing things. Might be indicative of the way Mitt Romney trivializes things, the same way he did the 47 percent. The real issue is civil rights for women, equal pay for women. The Republican Party has been against this. They're against the Ledbetter act, which provides as a civil rights, a civil right for women, equal pay for women. And Romney's trying to evade it. The whole election really comes down to Romney out there trying to evade the real positions of the Republican Party now that he's the nominee and has looked at the poll numbers and what plays well in certain states. And his own record. He's been, when he was governor, totally on the opposite side of the abortion question, of contraception, of Planned Parenthood, et cetera, et cetera. I talked to three governors and former governors, all Republicans, in the last two weeks, all of whom have said who the hell is Romney? What does he really stand for? We don't know, but we know he's following our party's line, which is essentially a tea party line. These are republican governors and former governors. And the truth is, we don't know who the hell mitt Romney is at this point. If we look at his record in Massachusetts, what he said when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the senate, and what he's saying now.
JANSING: Well, to your point though about women's issues, it was fascinating to me. I just saw some new numbers, Carl that the Obama campaign and democratic groups since July 2nd have run 30,000 commercials related to abortion. That's 10% of all the commercials that they've run. And here's what De De Myers had to say about Mitt Romney and women this morning on "Morning Joe."
DE DE MYERS: Now he says he would have, you know, would allow exceptions for a ban on abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, but he said he'd sign a personhood amendment, which would not only make all abortion illegal, it would make certain forms of contraception illegal.
BERNSTEIN: It's also about the Supreme Court. There's a very large chance that the supreme court, if it gets a different nominee from the makeup of the present court, a Republican nominee who might overturn roe versus wade, those votes will be there if Romney is president. And I think that's a real issue in this campaign. It's not only about Roe v. Wade; it's also about look at Romney's statements about supporting legislation that would allow employers to deny insurance that provides contraception. There's a consistent –
JANSING: But how much about this do you think, Carl -- and I'm curious about your opinion on this too, Nia-Malika. How much about this is about the facts, which are significant, and how much of it is about the general impression? Because there's another narrative from the Democratic Party, and it is that Mitt Romney is this kind of '50s Madmen kind of guy who, you know, may look good and sound nice, but in fact, he's a throwback.
BERNSTEIN: Well, I think there's some truth to it, perhaps he's a throwback, but more importantly is the question of who is he and what does he stand for? As far as we can tell, he stands for in the nominating process everything the tea party wanted. In the last few weeks, he now stands for some of the things he ran against Teddy Kennedy on, which go back to the center. The difference between Jeb Bush and a Mitt Romney is we know and can find out what Jeb Bush really believes and what he did as governor. The difference with Mitt Romney is we don't, as these Republican governors said to me, know what the hell that he really believes. Say what you want about Barack Obama, and I can understand why there are people who for ideological, practical, and all kinds of reasons might want to vote against Barack Obama, but we know where he stands. He's been an honest man about his own record and about being straightforward about what his administration stands for. Then you can grade him on his accomplishments. We now have a candidate of a major party, a party that is way outside the mainstream in terms of its representation in Washington, a radical party such as we've never had in our history, literally in our modern history never had such a radical party in Washington, D.C., and we don't know who its nominee really is and what he really believes, except one thing. We know how much he wants to be president. And one of the real issues in this campaign is, will he say anything to be president?
