John Dickerson hinted on Wednesday's CBS This Morning that the
only radicals in the abortion debate were on the pro-life side. During a
discussion about the furor over Rep. Todd Akin's recent "legitimate
rape" remark, Dickerson stated that "Congressman Akin...put a highlight on the extreme end of the abortion debate."
The political director's liberal slant came in the midst of his
network's 37 minutes of coverage of the Akin controversy since Monday.
By contrast, CBS devoted just under 10 minutes of coverage [1]
to Vice President Joe Biden's "put y'all back in chains" smear of
Republicans over a similar three-day period earlier in August, a nearly
four-to-one disparity.
Anchor Charlie Rose asked the former Time White House correspondent to weigh on how the Akin issue would effect the presidential race: "How serious do the people around Mitt Romney consider this?" Dickerson replied that it was "serious" and "distracting", and continued with his extremist suggestion about pro-lifers:
DICKERSON: It falls into an existing storyline Democrats have been pushing for a while, which is Mitt Romney may talk about the economy, but if he comes into office - if the Republicans take over the Senate, they will bring in these extreme views. What Congressman Akin has done is, kind of, put a highlight on the extreme end of the abortion debate.
This isn't the first time in recent weeks that the CBS political
director has spouted liberal talking points. On the July 26, 2012
edition of CBS This Morning, Dickerson invoked a Clinton-era slogan [2] as he brazenly defended President Obama's controversial "you didn't build that" remark on business: "What
the President was saying, is it takes a village essentially, to use a
cliche from a previous campaign; that no matter what you've done, you've
been helped in your life, whether it's by teachers or roads or the
policeman on the corner."
The transcript of the relevant portion of the John Dickerson segment from Wednesday's CBS This Morning:
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me begin with this. The political community says what about Congressman [Todd] Akin?
JOHN DICKERSON: Well, the Republican political community says, get him
out. He needs to be gone, because this puts the Senate race in Missouri
in peril. That's one of the ones Republicans needed to take control back
of the Senate. And also, it links up – they're about to have a party
convention, which is supposed to be about unity, not debates over
abortion, and not-
ROSE: I don't mean to interrupt you. I meant by that – the, sort of, wisdom of the political community, can he survive this?
DICKERSON: The wisdom - no. I mean, the wisdom of the Republican
community is that he's not going to have any money. He's going to lose
women voters, who this offends. And so, he's going to have to try and
build it from the grassroots. So, he can survive, and he can stay in the
race, but the thinking is, among Republicans, that he's thrown away
this seat.
GAYLE KING: We just heard Bill Plante, John, say that he's blaming the
liberal media. Do you think that that's going to help him - that tactic
will help him at all?
DICKERSON: If he's going to raise money, he's going to have to make
this a fight against somebody else - take the pressure off himself, make
him look – make himself look like a victim. And so, he's only got a few
boogiemen. The liberal media would be a good one, and there's a
traditional – there's a, sort of, narrative already in Republican
politics for that. The problem is that Mitt Romney is not a member of
the liberal media. The entire Republican establishment that's come out
against him - they're not members of the liberal media, so it's a tough
sell.
ROSE: How serious do the people around Mitt Romney consider this?
DICKERSON: It's serious. It's distracting. It falls into an existing
storyline Democrats have been pushing for a while, which is Mitt Romney
may talk about the economy, but if he comes into office - if the
Republicans take over the Senate, they will bring in these extreme
views. What Congressman Akin has done is, kind of, put a highlight on
the extreme end of the abortion debate. So, they are serious about it,
but their hope is that they're going to have a convention. There will be
a lot of news there - or at least a lot of fanfare that will look like
news - and they hope they can, kind of, paper over this with events.
Then, it will be on the Obama campaign to, kind of, keep this in the
news.