In AM Radio Appearance, Charles Gibson Unaware of Five Day-Old ACORN Controversy, Senate Vote to De-Fund

September 15th, 2009 2:11 PM
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This morning, co-host Don Wade of 890 WLS radio's Wade and Roma show in Chicago threw a question at ABC World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson that I suspect was on many listeners' minds: 

Don: Okay, here’s my news question. A Senate bill yesterday passes, cutting off funds to this group called ACORN. Now, we got that bill passed and we have the embarrassing video of ACORN staffers giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel with 13-year-old hookers. It has everything you could want – corruption and sleazy action at tax-funded organizations and it’s got government ties. But nobody’s covering that story. Why?

Keep in mind that James O'Keefe's and Hannah Giles's first pair of videos at BigGovernment.com showing an ACORN office engaged in the activity described appeared in the early morning on September 10. That was five days ago. 

But until that moment, the topic apparently wasn't on Gibson's mind. Here's Gibson's jaw-dropping answer, with additional follow-up banter (HT to Rush on the air; transcribed by Michelle Malkin, who also has audio):

Gibson: HAHAHAHAHA. HEHEHE. I didn’t even know about it. Um. So, you’ve got me at a loss. I don’t know. Uh. Uh. But my goodness, if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way!

Gibson: Or maybe this is just one you leave to the cables.

Roma: Well, I think this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization…

Gibson: I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before, but this one I don’t know about...

Roma: Jake Tapper did some blogging on it. I know he’s blogged at least once on this scandal.

Gibson: You guys are uh really up on the website.

Gibson, as NB's John Stephenson and P.J. Gladnick noted in September of last year, as a result of his interview with GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, twisted her words, with the help of selective editing, to portray her as some kind of out of touch, excessively religious, militaristic rube.

With the above interview, no editing is required. Who's out of touch now, Charlie?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.