MRC president Brent Bozell has an op-ed over on FoxNews.com about the character assassination of Dr. Ben Carson over his memoirs:
Dr. Ben Carson’s 1990 memoir Gifted Hands is being picked apart by the press. On Friday Carson objected to CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota’s line of questioning, and was summarily dismissed. “It’s called vetting in politics."
It was so predictable. In 2012, every single Republican who moved into the number one slot during the primaries was filleted by the leftist press using their fine-tuned art of personal attacks. Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney -- all went through the character assassination ringer. Even non-candidate Sarah Palin came under withering media fire, just in case.
"It's called vetting in politics." Understood in that declaration is the presumption that what is being vetted is pertinent to the presidential campaign conversation.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This vetting process is not designed as a disinterested pathological examination of a pertinent statement or significant event.
No, the objective of the vetting process is to impair, even to fatally damage, the image of the conservative target du jour.
As Bozell noted, Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 without these so-called vetting experts spending any noticeable time fact-checking this very best-selling memoir. Take Camerota’s network, CNN. Let’s take a look at how CNN “vetted” Obama’s books in 2007. This is The Situation Room on July 12, 2007:
WOLF BLITZER: Senator Barack Obama may be taking a cue from Oprah. Obama's presidential campaign is promoting a series of book clubs in the key primary state of New Hampshire. Let's bring in our Internet reporter, Abbi Tatton. What are supporters reading at these book clubs, Abbi?
ABBI TATTON: Wolf, in Obama's book club, there's actually only one thing on the reading list -- his campaign in New Hampshire inviting people this summer to get together and read his first book, his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, that dealt wish issues of race and identity. And it was re-released in 2004.
Those book clubs started meeting this week, 85 people across the state meeting on Tuesday night -- other events planned for later in the week. And these clubs are discussing the book for a couple of weeks, after which time they will pass along the copies that have been donated by staff and volunteers on the campaign on to new readers and start all over again.
There's an online discussion, as well, so people can follow along on the Web site. A spokeswoman for the Barack Obama campaign in New Hampshire says, this is a way to let voters get to know Barack Obama, who may not be as familiar to voters as some of the other candidates. And there's always a chance that reading list could expand. Barack Obama's second book. The Audacity of Hope was published last year -- Wolf.
BLITZER: And I assume, one of these days, there will be a third book as well -- all those books selling very, very well. Thank you, Abbi, for that.
That's not vetting, it's just advertising.
On CNN's The Situation Room on November 21, 2007, commentator Jack Cafferty discussed how Obama called himself a "junky pothead" in his memoir, and then quoted Republican rival Rudy Giuliani praising Obama: "I respect his honesty. One of the things we need from our people that are running for high office is not this pretense of perfection."
In January of 2007, CNN boasted it had debunked a false report that as a child Obama attended a madrassa, or radical Islamic school. "DEBUNKING A SMEAR," screamed the headline on CNN. The network boasted of dispatching reporter John Vause to Indonesia to report Obama was actually educated in a state-run school that touched on religion only once a week, "in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Jakarta."
CNN was "vetting" alright -- vetting Obama critics who might damage his campaign. Now they're the ones trying to destroy Carson's campaign.
In 2003, when Hillary Clinton's memoir Living History came out, the "vetters" weren't fact-checking about her childhood or her adulthood full of scandals. Instead, Time ran an excerpt to sell it and Time's Nancy Gibbs asked "Is the vast, right-wing conspiracy bigger than you thought when you brought that term into our vocabulary?"
On NBC, Katie Couric asked about her health-care debacle: "But were you surprised at the backlash? The really vitriolic, violent backlash against you in many ways? Do you think it was good old-fashioned sexism?"
ABC's Barbara Walters gave Hillary a prime-time Sunday night special and asked how she could work in the Senate with people who voted to impeach her husband. "Are you a saint?" The Walters "vetting" also included this nugget: "I don't think people realize how strong your faith is. It goes all through the book."
The Washington Post suggested why all the TV stars doted on her. When the newspaper prepared a story on her book's inveighing against Kenneth Starr and other conservative enemies, "the author...declined to be interviewed about the political content of her book." Some vetting.
There's a glaring, outrageous double standard. Any journalist who says Carson is getting a vetting just like everyone else, that every candidate for president is nitpicked like this, is a shameless liar.
