On Sunday, Bob Schieffer announced that John Dickerson, CBS News Political Director and Slate Magazine Chief Political Correspondent, will succeed him as moderator of Face the Nation when he retires this summer.
To honor his retirement, NewsBusters listed some of Schieffer’s worst quotes and we have decided to welcome Dickerson the Face the Nation by highlighting some of his most memorable lefty comments.
On January 21, 2013 Dickerson served as an unofficial Democratic campaign strategist when he wrote in Slate that President Obama should “Declare War on the Republican Party.” In the piece he told Obama to “Go for the throat!” before he urged him to “pulverize” the Republican Party:
Washington’s partisan rancor, the size of the problems facing government, and the limited amount of time before Obama is a lame duck all point to a single conclusion: The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.
Following the backlash, Dickerson doubled-down on his advise to Obama and responded in a complaint piece entitled “They Hate Me, They Really Hate Me: Conservatives despise my analysis of Obama’s second-term options. But it was analysis—not advice":
I was using a very specific definition of transformational presidencies based on my reading of a theory of political science and the president's own words about transformational presidencies from the 2008 campaign...It was also based on these givens: The president is ambitious, has picked politically controversial goals, has little time to operate before he is dubbed a lame-duck president, and has written off working with Republicans.
On July 18, 2014 Dickerson penned a piece at Slate.com urging liberal Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to “Run Elizabeth, Run!” In the article, the supposedly objective reporter argued “why an Elizabeth Warren presidential bid would be good for all Americans.”
On February 23 of this year, Dickerson appeared on CBS This Morning and lamented that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for failing to forcefully condemn former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani after he suggested President Obama didn’t love America:
Scott Walker is being very safe. He's on top of the world for the moment in the Republican primary process and he doesn't want to make a mistake and we’ve seen that on several things. He's very risk averse....In our most recent CBS poll, 59% of the people don’t know who Scott Walker is. So he’s on top of the world and he’s got a chance to lock in an impression about him. That's what makes him nervous, but also it's an opportunity to grab a moment, and define himself, show his character and authenticity and define himself before other people do.
