Andrea Mitchell is no newbie to journalism. In fact, in 2010, she was given the Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism by the National Press Foundation. She's in good company with Brit Hume and the late Tim Russert among previous recipients of the award. But alas, the MSNBC anchor displayed no "excellence in journalism" with her brief, softball interview today with Robin Morgan of the liberal Women's Media Center.
Mitchell brought Morgan on to discuss her group's petition drive to request the FCC to ban Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. The WMC's argument is that Limbaugh engages in "hate speech" which is not in the "public interest" and hence cause to push him off the air. Below the page break I've listed in bullet points the questions Mitchell posed to Morgan, which, as you can see, are all softballs meant to advance Morgan's talking points:
- He has apologized, Rush Limbaugh has, he's said that, for over 40, excuse me, for over 20 years, quote, "I have demonstrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance," he says, "I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices." So, should that apology be enough?
- This was Rush just within the hour on his show again today. [plays Limbaugh clip where he says the women of America "want jobs" and that the Obama administration "calculated they could create this mythical Republican war on women, and look where they are."]
Yup. That's it. Following Morgan's answer to the second question, Mitchell thanked her guest for appearing on the program. In effect, it was a brief advertisement for the Women's Media Center, a short plug for their petition drive to silence Rush.
As you may recall, in recent weeks Mitchell has tag-teamed with liberal feminists on matters from the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy to the ObamaCare contraception mandate to Texas legislators defunding Planned Parenthood.
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