In an eye-opening exchange on The O'Reilly Factor this evening (Monday, October 30, 2006), liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams agreed with host Bill O'Reilly that CNN "is in the tank for the Democrats." The topic of the segment was Friday's testy exchange between Lynne Cheney and CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
O'REILLY: ... But the bigger picture is that Lynne Cheney asserts that CNN, in its election coverage, Juan, is in the tank for the Democrats. You buying that?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. I think that's true.
O'REILLY: (surprised) Do you really?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. I think that they are counter-programming Fox, is what it looks like to me.
O'REILLY: Well, no. MSNBC is doing that.
WILLIAMS: Well -
O'REILLY: You think that CNN's in the tank for the Democrats?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that "Broken Government" program that Lynne Cheney was talking about - You know, Lynne Cheney made a really strong point when she said, "You know, the economy's doing pretty good. Where's this broken?" I have problems with this administration - look - in terms of American democracy. I don't know. It looks to me, though, that they are becoming more and more partisan. And that's what they think we do here at Fox.
O'REILLY: That's really interesting that you would say that, because Juan, of course, is the king of NPR and a liberal guy himself. Ummm. I don't know. I mean, I have to say. I'm busy here working all day. I'm not watching The Situation Room. I mean, I see the transcripts, but I don't know if they're in the tank.
Whoa! Williams' remarks reminds one of the famous admission by Newsweek's Evan Thomas during the 2004 Presidential campaign that the media "wants Kerry to win" (link) . More recently, veteran Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall admitted that the MSM's biases are "overwhelmingly to the left" and that Democratic reporters outnumber Republicans "in the range of 15-25 to 1" (link).
Juan's remarks only reinforce the obvious, but hearing the truth again is refreshing.
