CNN host Fareed Zakaria, who admitted last year that he held
off-the-record conversations with President Obama even though he was
covering the President's foreign policy, has now expressed [1], in a CNN blog post, his support for the Buffett Rule – legislation that Obama has pushed for in recent weeks.
Zakaria is reportedly [2] on the short list of considerations for Obama's next Secretary of State if the President is re-elected, and has had to answer [3]
for his conversations with Obama and any possible conflict they might
have had with his reporting on foreign affairs. Now he is supporting
legislation that the President has asked Congress to pass.
"If
I were in Congress, I'd vote for the Buffett Rule," wrote the host of
CNN's foreign affairs show Fareed Zakaria GPS. "I think as a matter of
fairness, the Buffett Tax makes sense." President Obama has been touting
the idea recently as he campaigns for re-election, saying that
millionaires should be paying a minimum 30 percent effective federal tax
rate.
Zakaria did acknowledge that the current legislation is more of a
"gimmick" without dealing with any of the tax loopholes and deductions
he believes need reforming.
Last year, then-CNN host Eliot Spitzer spilled the beans [4] about a New York Times report [5] saying President Obama "sounded out" Zakaria for information on the Middle East. Zakaria clarified [6] that he was not advising Obama but had face-to-face conversations off-the-record.
Skepticism ensued about Zakaria's journalistic integrity as he praised
President Obama's foreign policy. He said the President's June speech on
Afghanistan was a "remarkable [7] speech for an American president" and added that Obama made the "right call [8]" on Afghanistan.
He called Obama's Middle East speech in May "remarkably comprehensive [9]" as well as "fair" and "balanced." Later in July, he praised [10] Obama's "restraint" in his Middle East foreign policy.