The perilously liberal Rolling Stone contributing editor and Buzzfeed reporter Michael Hastings on Saturday accused MSNBC analyst Perry Bacon Jr. of echoing “talking points from the White House."
Such occurred on MSNBC’s Up during a discussion about President Obama’s recent national security speech (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MICHAEL HASTINGS, ROLLING STONE CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AND BUZZFEED REPORTER: If you compare this speech to the speech he gave in Cairo in 2009 or his Nobel Prize speech, you see a kind of almost total rejection of the civil rights tradition that President Obama supposedly came out of, a total rejection of any kind of ideas of a kind of peaceful transition, of a kind of trying to work with people in different nations, and just an embrace of total militarism. And the reason I say this is because that speech to me was essentially agreeing with President Bush and Vice President Cheney that we're in this neo-conservative paradigm that we're at war with a jihadist threat that actually is not a nuisance but the most important threat we're facing today. It is completely, in my view, a rejection of what John Kerry said and I said an embrace of militarism…
STEVE KORNACKI, HOST: But he's talking about…
HASTINGS: He's saying, he’s saying, he says many multiple things.
KORNACKI: Right. I agree it's complex, but I mean…
HASTINGS: No, it’s not only complex, but he enshrines. Look, the two key things that I took away from that speech is that Obama has enshrined the two most radical principles of the Bush doctrine. The first is, oh, he got rid of, sort of got rid of torture and sort of got rid of extraordinary rendition but enshrines targeted assassination. At the same time, he doesn't apologize for, he won't apologize for the scandal in Benghazi, he won't apologize for the, really the IRS is a few bad apples, and he says, “No, the AP and spying on journalists is okay.” So he enshrines killing people and spying on journalists as the two major tenets of his national security state. I think this is outrageous.
PERRY BACON JR,. MSNBC ANALYST: I’m not, I don't agree with what Michael said, I’m just going to be blunt about it.
HASTINGS: Well, I read your piece, I read your piece. It was essentially, you know, talking points from the White House. It was stenography. And, you know, I mean, look, I dig your work and, you know, read it in the past as a colleague, but I was not impressed with the piece that we were sent around by the producers.
KORNACKI: Let’s let Perry explain what he said before we say that we’re not impressed with it. Let’s hear it.
HASTINGS: Well, I can say it. I read it.
Hastings was likely referring to Bacon's piece published at NBC's TheGrio.com Thursday.
As for echoing White House talking points, Hastings certainly shouldn't be surprised by an MSNBC analyst doing that.
That's clearly what they're all hired to do.
It nevertheless was refreshing to see someone - especially a far-left liberal! - call somebody out for it on that farce of a so-called "news network."
Bravo, Michael! Bravo!
