In a segment today with Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus, MSNBC's Martin Bashir did his level best to trash the 2012 GOP presidential field, mocking Tim Pawlenty as a "coward," Mitt Romney as an "insensitive" rich guy, and Michele Bachmann as gaffe-prone.
What's more, when Jacobus sought to turn her appearance into an opportunity to remind viewers of Obama's ownership of the economy and on his recent "shovel-ready" jobs joke, Bashir bristled at her attempt to further her talking points on his Obama-boosting program:
JACOBUS: I do think she [Bachmann] has a point though, about the president really being out of touch on this. And what I just said about the comment he made with regard to the shovel-ready projects, but we also learned last week, Martin, that the president has ceased having daily economic briefings from his senior team.
In fact, the only person he meets with daily to talk about the economy and the poor situation we're in is Joe Biden, who seemed to be unaware that the two car companies that we helped out with the bailout money did in fact file for bankruptcy after they got the bailout money.
BASHIR, interrupting: Cheri, Cheri, if I can--
JACOBUS: He doesn't have any idea, so I think that Michele Bachmann has a point.
BASHIR: Let's go back to Michele for a moment, though. You know as well as anybody that she has made some rather remarkable comments in the past about the census, about history, which have been mistakes. And is it not the case that those comments are going to simply wind up in campaign videos and adverts that are going to end up undermining her at some point?
Of course, as I've addressed earlier in an earlier NewsBusters post, Bachmann was factually correct in her assertion that U.S. Census data was used by federal officials in World War II to round up Japanese-Americans for the internment camps. As such, that claim is not a gaffe and Bashir is arguably historically illiterate to argue as such.
Bashir also dusted off the class warfare card, airing a clip of Mitt Romney's joke about being "unemployed" and seeking the job of the presidency before asking Jacobus:
Now, it's obvious that Mitt Romney was just being friendly and funny, but with a net worth in excess of $200 million, I guess it's easy to be insensitive to those who are much less fortunate, isn't it?
As far as Romney's rival Tim Pawlenty, Bashir suggested the former Minnesota governor was chicken for not sharply tackling Romney on health care in this week's CNN debate:
Now, during the debate that you're referring to, Tim Pawlenty refused to follow up on his comments about Mitt Romney and ObamneyCare as he called it. Now he's taking swipes again. This week he tweeted, "On seizing debate opportunity re: healthcare: Me 0, Mitt 1. On doing healthcare reform the right way as governor: Me 1, Mitt 0."
Do you think this guy's a coward? Why wouldn't he say the word [Obamneycare] in front of Mitt Romney during the debate, and yet he appears on Fox News and he says the same thing, he tweets these kinds of comments but he won't say it to the man's face?!
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