CNN did its best to promote former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' push for stricter gun laws on Tuesday. Correspondent David Mattingly even highlighted the large "donate" button on the website of Giffords' new political action committee.
"And if you think about it, if Gabby Giffords came knocking on my door, office door on Capitol Hill, I would have to let her in," swooned anchor Carol Costello. Mattingly directed viewers to her website's fundraising section: "[I]f you go to the website that they've set up now, the Americans for Responsible Solutions, the first thing you see there is a big window where you can click on it to donate." [Video below the break. Audio here.]
"[A]s powerful as the NRA is, it is not easy to fight Gabby Giffords," touted anchor Ashleigh Banfield. "She has an enormous amount of support not only among her former congressmen, but across the country as well. And she does elicit a lot of sympathy."
ABC threw a softball to Giffords with a Tuesday interview, where Giffords declared "enough" with congressional inaction after the Sandy Hook shooting. Mattingly touted the ABC interview.
"'Enough.' One word says so much coming from her with so much personal experience, so much personal pain," he puffed up the drama of her word.
"I guess the biggest thing for me is these tragedy happens, we get all upset and we say we're going to do something and then it kind of fades away and we don't talk about it," whined Costello.
And as if CNN's own promotion wasn't enough, anchors gave soft interviews to friends of Giffords who got the word out about their cause.
For instance, Costello teed up Tucson shooting survivor Pam Simon, a friend of Giffords: "After what happened to you in Tucson, did you think that some kind of gun legislation would at least be introduced in Congress?"
Banfield, referring to Giffords' reception of "sympathy" and "enormous support," asked her congressional successor Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), "Is that something that Ms. Giffords and her husband think really could work to their advantage because how do you go up against Gabby Giffords and fight what she's doing?"
"John, you know, passion does fade away, sadly, it does. People continue with their lives," Costello lamented to anti-gun Mayor Bloomberg's adviser John Feinblatt. She complained more than once that no congressional action on guns was taken after the Giffords shooting.
