I've been trying to give Chuck Todd the benefit of the doubt when it comes to classifying him as part of what Rush would call the state-controlled media. But that indulgence was strained to the breaking point on Morning Joe today when Todd flatly rejected the notion that the MSM had under-covered the Van Jones story and suggested that delving into his background would have been a waste of MSM time.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You say this has been a Republican obsession, ACORN. It certainly hasn't been an obsession in the media. Mike Allen said the mainstream media was slow on the Van Jones story, also slow on this [ACORN] story. Is that a fair charge?
CHUCK TODD: You know, no . . . I think Van Jones was not, this was not a big guy in the White House administration. If we're all going to focus on trying to figure out who Van Jones and his past relationships, when you go #600 down on the list of White House staff. Is that the best use of the time of the mainstream media? You know, we'll see. Clearly some on the right had objections to Van Jones and they successfully got the White House to sever ties.
SCARBOROUGH: OK.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Interesting take.
Interesting indeed. So it wasn't worth the MSM's time to cover Van Jones. Let's review:
- hand-picked by top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
- self-described "Communist" in the 90s.
- leading member of the Marxist "STORM" organization.
- Signed-on-the-dotted-line Truther.
- responsible for crafting PBO's "green jobs" initiative, something near to the president's policy heart.
Can Todd say with a straight face that had a Republican admin contained someone with a mirror-image history, the MSM wouldn't have been all over it?
Even the New York Times has acknowledged that it was late to the Van Jones game. So Todd places NBC to even the Gray Lady's left when it comes to covering for the Obama admin.
Note: Joe and Mika seemed skeptical of Todd's argument, Scarborough mentioning they would discuss on their radio show later this morning Todd's notion that Jones wasn't worth covering.
