MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who previously compared Rick Santorum to genocidal murderer Joseph Stalin,
on Wednesday mocked the concept that MSNBC could be biased against
Republicans. A network graphic dismissed, "Paranoia? Romney: More Media
Should Be as 'Fair' as Fox News."
After playing clips of Mitt Romney decrying liberal media bias, Bashir
huffed, "This is pretty rich from a man who hasn't appeared on Meet the
Press, whose spokesman won't even accept an invitation to appear on this broadcast."
Why would Republicans come on Bashir's show? In addition to comparing
Santorum to a dictatorial mass killer, this same anchor linked Newt
Gingrich's political comments to the murder of a British teen. [See MP3 audio here.]
Who did Bashir turn to about this crazy idea of media bias? Democratic
strategist Julian Epstein, liberal journalist Joe Williams (who once
compared Rush Limbaugh to a serial killer) and Michelle Cottle of the left-wing Daily Beast. Who better to determine the reality of the liberal media?
According to Cottle, Romney's comments are part of a clever strategy to
dupe journalists: "...I've written about this over the years how this
turns around and you actually wind up with the media being harsher on
the Democratic candidates a lot of times in their efforts to over
compensate, so it is actually a pretty good strategy if you can make it
work."
A transcript of the April 18 segment, which aired at 3:43pm EDT, follows:
MSNBC GRAPHIC: Paranoia? Romney: More Media Should Be as 'Fair' as Fox News
MITT ROMNEY: Many in the media are inclined to do the President's bidding.
MARTIN
BASHIR: Let's go back to our panel. Julian Epstein, Joe Williams and
Michelle Cottle. So, there you have it, Michelle, a vast left wing
conspiracy as told to a radio man for the late Andrew Breitbart just
before this morning's interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. You
may be able to find the link somewhere, I think, on the Drudge Report.
But, this conspiracy is obviously vast and left-wing.
MICHELLE COTTLE (Newsweek/Daily Beast): Absolutely. And I think we all
know how well it went over when Hillary Clinton mentioned the vast
right-wing conspiracy. So, he was kind of chuckleing when he said that. I
hope he gets that it's a little bit silly. But, he was talking about if
I remember the media and this is just the favorite refuge of people who
aren't doing that well in the polls or think they should be doing
better. It's always the media that is out to get them.
MARTIN BASHIR: Julian, Mitt Romney was asked about the fair and
balanced network today by a conservative host, of course, and here is
what he had to say. Listen to this.
MITT ROMNEY: I realize, of course, that Fox has a lot of independent
voters, a lot of Democrats that watch. Our message, in a network that is
fair and balanced, our message gets a good fair play but there are some
networks that do not give us a fair play.
BASHIR: This is pretty rich from a man who hasn't appeared on
Meet the Press, whose spokesman won't even accept an invitation to
appear on this broadcast.
JULIAN EPSTEIN (Democratic strategist): Yeah. Well, look, it is like
the losing team in a sports match blaming the ref. And this is what he
is doing. He is working the ref and this is the strategy you employ when
two out of three Americans has an unfavorable point of view of you.
But, the fact of the matter is this, Pew Research did a study of this
back in October of last year, they found by far and away Obama was
getting the most negative coverage of any of the presidential
candidates, that four out of five stories of the period they surveyed
were actually negative for Obama, and Romney got as many as three times
as many favorable stories as did Obama. So, you know, the fact of the
matter is Romney has gone down. His personal favorability has gone down
for refusal to do things like condemn Rush Limbaugh. That was not an
invention of the left-wing media. And just one final point, I mean, the
fact we had five days of coverage of something that a Democratic punt
not associated with the DNC, the fact that we had five days of coverage
should we belie the argument there is some kind of left wing conspiracy
out there with the news media. It is hog wash.
BASHIR: And it is also the case and this is the fact that the
President has in fact appeared on Fox News on several occasions. But,
Joe, you know, anyone else who believes in a vast left wing media
conspiracy, Ted Nugent, who wrote in a book, listen to this, I am
quoting from the book, he says "Anyone who dismisses such a conspiracy
is, quote, "a paid employee of the media or a deaf, dumb and blind
fool."
JOE WILLIAMS (Politico): Well, two things: And I always wait for the
end of that sentence where he says and I will blow your heads off or the
second question is if you're deaf and blind, you will probably be more
enjoy Ted Nugent's music. I mean, certainly there are legions of people
that believe this and more than happy to be on the right side of the
spectrum. That's pretty much a given. But, the problem is that you have a
candidate who has been campaigning and even his own campaign reporters,
embeds the people that follow the campaign can't get a word in edge
wise. Can't get a question to the candidate which is the opposite of a
conspiracy. You have people who are actively following you around that
want to engage you on the issues, want to give you a fair hearing and
you're not even considering what they want to ask. So, certainly he is
going to friendlier territory, people that listen to Fox News and who
watch Fox News are receptive to this message and people that listen to
ted nugent probably receptive to any message particularly coming from
some place other than the planet Earth.
BASHIR: So, Michelle, going on from Joe's point, is Mitt Romney
basically practicing a form of psychological transferance? I mean, he
gives nobody any access to him on the trail. He refuses to appear on
Meet the Press, I believe, since 2009, but then he attacks everyone else
for running a left wing conspiracy against him.
COTTLE: This is actually not that uncommon a strategy, especially with
conservative candidates. You make the media paranoid that they're not
treating you fairly and everybody is up in arms, no, a left-wing bias
and we need to make sure we don't have a left-wing bias. You
know, I've written about this over the years how this turns around and
you actually wind up with the media being harsher on the Democratic
candidates a lot of times in their efforts to over compensate, so it is
actually a pretty good strategy if you can make it work.
WILLIAMS: It intends to work in certain instances, particularly if you
have a receptive audience and if you are practicing what I kind of term
the Karl Rove political jujitsu where you use an opponent's strength
against him. John Kerry became a war coward and President Obama has done
nothing to aid the economy. Those are strategy that is resonate with
people that want to believe it and get enthusiastic about the campaigns
and make a lot of noise about the conspiracy theories
EPSTEIN: Well, you know, to tie some of these ideas together, in 2008
it was the media that hounded on then candidate Barack Obama to distance
himself from Reverend Jeremiah Wright because of controversial things
that Jeremiah Wright said. That was a standard that Republicans enforced
out into the media and the media covered this for months. Now, the
question is will they force Republicans to denounce in the same way?
BASHIR: I doubt it very much.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
