As NewsBusters previously reported, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday Republican freshmen in the House "are here to kill women."
On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, host Howard Kurtz correctly wondered why this didn't cause any media outrage (video follows with transcript and commentary):
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: But I wonder if you think enough attention was paid to -- you know, we often talk about when conservatives say things like "You lie," it gets a lot of attention. Here's Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter saying Republicans want to kill woman. And I didn't see a lot of outrage about that. I mean, that's pretty hot rhetoric.
MATT LEWIS, DAILY CALLER: Well, especially if you look at it in the context of where we've been. I was on your show, like, a month ago, and we were talking about the heated rhetoric and about the new tone that we should have in the wake of the Gabby Giffords thing. I mean, so all this talk about toning down the rhetoric, and here you have a Democrat using what I think is unacceptable political rhetoric for politics.
KURTZ: Not that there hasn't been hot rhetoric on both sides.
Sure, but the hot rhetoric from Republicans always gets reported, Howie - and that's the difference.
But that wasn't the end of this discussion, for there was another surprise moments later:
Did the White House make an attempt to convince journalists that the president was really driving this process at the end?
JULIE MASON, POLITICO: At the end. And really, this shows a real maturing of how the White House handles these political situations, because he got in at the very end and they inoculated him. If they come out with a deal, he gets the credit. If the deal breaks down, and the government shuts down, then it's not Obama's fault because he wasn't really involved. It was Congress' fault.
KURTZ: Are you suggesting that that is reality or that this is a spin that the media happily swallowed?
MASON: Oh, it's a complete spin. And the worst thing about this was -- is that when they did come out with a deal, the media was piling on saying this is great for Boehner, this is great for Obama, they worked it out, when really the entire situation was a failure of leadership. How did it get that far?
KURTZ: Yes. Well, in part, because the Democrats didn't pass the budget last year when they controlled both houses.
Indeed. So why hasn't there been media outrage about that as the government moved towards a shutdown that was narrowly averted late Friday evening?
Unfortunately, Kurtz didn't address that hypocrisy.
Too bad.
