On Monday, MSNBC's Martin Bashir tried to obscure the real policy issues in the contraceptive mandate row by harping on Newt Gingrich's past infidelities. On Wednesday, the afternoon host stocked his program with liberals who backed the Obama administration's position and complained Republicans were engaging in a "toxic waste of time" by calling for congressional debate on the contraceptive mandate.
Today, with a "compromise" in the works that meets the approval of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, but not the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bashir cheered the administration as though it had, with Solomonic wisdom, balanced the competing interests of "women's health" and religious liberty.
Bashir did include one conservative guest who was skeptical of the Obama administration's move, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), but Bashir devoted that interview to attacking Republicans on both the contraceptive mandate issue and other issues like unemployment insurance and proposed welfare reforms.
What's more, one of Bashir's pro-Obama guests, former DNC chief Karen Finney, was featured during today's program commenting favorably on the "compromise," without once mentioning or being tagged onscreen as a NARAL Pro-Choice America Board of Directors member. In January Finney attended NARAL's annual fundraising dinner which is pegged to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Far from being an objective journalist intent on giving his audience both sides of the debate, Bashir has proven time and again a flak for the Obama White House and the Democratic Party.
