Appearing on Fox News's America Live on Thursday, Daily Beast columnist
and Democratic pundit Kirsten Powers ripped the liberal media for
expressing more outrage over Mitt Romney's reaction to Tuesday's embassy
attacks, than toward the attackers themselves: "I mean, it is just absolutely utterly insane the way that they have elevated this." [Listen to the audio [1]]
Powers worried that the blatant bias had "overshadowed any kind
of outrage that you would see over the fact that you have Islamic flags
being hoisted over American embassies, the fact that an American
ambassador is dead."
Acknowledging the Democratic perspective, Powers explained: "...let's
just stipulate that, for the sake of argument, that Romney shouldn't
have done it [criticized Obama] – I don't agree with that – it still
would not explain the obsession with Romney's statement over these
horrific events that are unfolding in front of us."
Later in the discussion, host Megyn Kelly asked Powers: "You always
have to look back at, you know, when detecting media – you know,
potential media bias, you look back at what would the media have done if
this had happened on George Bush's watch?"
Powers denounced the double standard:
Yeah. It would have been completely radically different. Look, like I said, even if you agree that Mitt Romney did something wrong, okay, look at that, but let's also look at the Obama administration. It was just radio silence....why didn't they know that these attacks were coming? Was Obama getting his intelligence briefings? I mean these are the issues that should be being asked and would be being asked if this had happened on George Bush's watch.
Here are portions of the September 13 discussion:
2:36PM ET
(...)
MEGYN KELLY: And just so our viewers know, what happened was the U.S.
embassy, just to refresh you, in Cairo, came out with a statement
condemning "the misguided individuals who tried to hurt the religious
feelings of Muslims." Then they got attacked and they doubled down on
that statement. Mitt Romney came out and criticized the statement,
saying, "that's disgraceful that the administration's first response was
not to condemn the attacks on the diplomatic mission, but to sympathize
with those waging them." Later, Washington pulled back the embassy
statement and said we didn't authorize it either. So Kirsten, you wound
up having the Obama administration and Mitt Romney agreeing that the
embassy statement was not appropriate. And yet, the whole media
narrative yesterday was how awful Governor Romney was for pointing it
out.
KIRSTEN
POWERS: Oh yeah, it's still the media narrative. And the thing is, the
outrage that has been expressed over the fact that Mitt Romney put out
this statement has even overshadowed any kind of outrage that you would
see over the fact that you have Islamic flags being hoisted over
American embassies, the fact that an American ambassador is dead. I mean
you just are not seeing the same level of outrage over just the process
of what time he put the statement out. I mean, it is just absolutely
utterly insane the way that they have elevated this. And even if we
stipulated, Megyn, let's just stipulate that, for the sake of argument,
that Romney shouldn't have done it – I don't agree with that – it still
would not explain the obsession with Romney's statement over these
horrific events that are unfolding in front of us.
(...)
KELLY: And Kirsten, you always have to look back at, you know, when
detecting media – you know, potential media bias, you look back at what
would the media have done if this had happened on George Bush's watch?
POWERS: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: If we had had these attacks on the embassies and the consulates.
POWERS: Yeah. It would have been completely radically different. Look,
like I said, even if you agree that Mitt Romney did something wrong,
okay, look at that, but let's also look at the Obama administration. It
was just radio silence. You know, they allowed that statement to stay up
on an embassy web site, which is taken as the official position of the
U.S. government. This person was, someone was tweeting from the official
account and they didn't – they didn't come out and say a word. So
what's that about? And did they know – why didn't they know that these
attacks were coming? Was Obama getting his intelligence briefings? I
mean these are the issues that should be being asked and would be being
asked if this had happened on George Bush's watch.
(...)
POWERS: One of the things that a lot of liberals are complaining about
is they're saying that Mitt Romney attacked Obama, basically saying this
was his statement, which of course, we all thought it was the Obama
administration's statement because it was on the embassy web site. But
even if it wasn't, what has he said that's any different than that? You
know, I mean he hasn't used that exact phrasing, but we could not have
had a weaker response to this if we just sat around and tried to think
of like, what's the weakest thing we could do? And that initial
statement was weak, and now we have a continued – the administration
coming out and condemning this movie as if the movie caused this attack.
The fanatics attacked the embassy. They're going to attack us whether
there's a movie or there's not a movie. And they are continuing to do –
the sentiment in that original statement continues to be the sentiment
of the Obama administration.