"You have not had a single, as far as I know, violent action related to the Tea Party activity. For all the bluster or energy or street theater, no one's been hurt. They haven't, you know, they're not the bogeyman that maybe they have been portrayed by many."
So amazingly said Geraldo Rivera to fired GEICO announcer Lance Baxter aka D.C. Douglas Sunday evening.
As NewsBusters reported last week, Baxter was terminated by the insurance giant for leaving a disgusting voice-mail message at the offices of FreedomWorks, an organization that is supporting the Tea Party.
Days later, Rivera decided to question Douglas and FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe separately (video follows with highlights and commentary):
Despite Rivera's point about the lack of violence related to the Tea Party, this was hardly a fair and balanced report.
First off, when you include the introduction which featured Baxter's pathetic video response to FreedomWorks, he was given almost five of the six and a half minutes in this segment.
By contrast, Kibbe was on camera for all of one and a half minutes, and had to put up with the following absurd question from Rivera:
GERALDO RIVERA, HOST: You also went to GEICO, or had your followers go to GEICO and he did get fired. You're saying he's posing as a victim. In a sense, I mean he has been, he has suffered as a result of his intemperate remarks. But isn't that kind of like blacklisting?
BLACKLISTING? A man who is the commercial voice of a large corporation leaves a disgusting message at a non-profit organization, its members complain to said corporation which ends up firing the individual, and Rivera thinks this is blacklisting?
Maybe folks on the Left who constantly point fingers at Fox News as being the voice of the Republican Party should constantly be reminded that this so-called conservative network gave a liberal like Geraldo Rivera his own show.
