ABC’s David Muir Hypes David Petraeus Endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Omits Benghazi
A new biography entitled HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton is set to hit bookshelves later this month, and the folks at ABC News have already jumped on a new endorsement for Ms. Clinton that was revealed in the upcoming book.
On Sunday night, World News host David Muir jumped all over the “eye opening endorsement” made by General David Petraeus, yet when the endorsement was read, Muir ignored referencing Benghazi, which Petraeus gave as the primary reason for his endorsement. Muir only quoted Petraeus’ claim that Clinton would “quote make an incredible president.”
While the segment on Ms. Clinton was brief, Muir could have easily spent an additional 10 seconds to read Petraeus’ entire endorsement, which included a reference to Benghazi, but the ABC reporter chose not to. Instead, Muir only briefly mentioned how “During her 2008 run for president, Clinton critiqued Petraeus’ handling of the Iraq war but the two later forging a strong working relationship during her tenure as Secretary of State.”
For his part, Jonathan Karl, who filled in for George Stephanopoulos on This Week earlier Sunday morning, felt it relevant to include the entire Petraeus endorsement of Clinton:
Like a lot of great leaders, her impressive qualities were most visible during tough times. In the wake of the Benghazi attacks, for example, I thought she was extraordinarily resolute, determined, and controlled.
What’s strange is that Karl (Muir didn’t bother saying the word Benghazi) didn’t find it odd that Petraeus would insist that Benghazi was evidence of Ms. Clinton being “resolute, determined, and controlled.” Instead, the two ABC reporters eagerly jumped on the endorsement without questioning its merits or validity.
One would think that if an ABC reporter like David Muir was going to gleefully hype an endorsement by General Petraeus he might want to reference the most recent stain on her record: Benghazi. Instead, the ABC anchor was too busy cheering over the endorsement to bother to mention the terrorist attack that killed four Americans on the anniversary of September 11th.
2016 is a long way off, and it appears that ABC has already begun doing its best to protect Ms. Clinton from criticism despite the myriad of questions surrounding the Benghazi attack as well as the rest of her career in public life.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC World News with David Muir
February 9, 2014
6:11 p.m. Eastern
DAVID MUIR: And back here at home tonight, into to a new book on Hillary Clinton coming out this week and in what some are interpreting as an eye-opening endorsement in her possible run for president. General David Petraeus saying in the book "She'd make an incredible president." During her 2008 run for president, Clinton critiqued Petraeus’ handling of the Iraq war but the two later forging a strong working relationship during her tenure as Secretary of State. The book is called HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton.
— Jeffrey Meyer is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Jeffrey Meyer on Twitter.
