NPR/Fox Republican wanker

Mara Liasson bats from the right



Last Sunday I let go of my urge to post after I heard Liasson talk on Fox about how overjoyed her Republican sources were that Senator Russ Feingold had presented a censure resolution. A ``gift'' to the Republicans, I believe was the astute Fox analysis. Of course, this is bullshit.

Now Media Matters has this:

On the March 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, the national political correspondent for National Public Radio and a member of Special Report's "All-Star Panel," again asserted, in defiance of NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, that "whenever there's any kind of a contest or a contrast between the person at the podium in the White House briefing room and the press corps, the press corps generally loses. ... I think that happened in this case, too." Liasson was referring to the testy exchange between President Bush and Hearst Newspapers columnist Helen Thomas at Bush's March 21 news conference. Liasson offered this opinion despite repeated criticism by Dvorkin, who recently admonished NPR reporters for going on programs "that are looking to appear fair and balanced" and expressing their opinions rather than simply recounting what their reporting shows.

Translation: Liasson is too much a cheerleader for Bush's team than even her National Pentagon Radio in-house watcher can stand.

More on the softball press conference
I'm beginning to really appreciate Media Matters. This is just some terrific analysis of how the press corps ``gave Bush a pass'' at the Tuesday press conference.

Here's just a sample of the questions they should have been asking to back up the lonely voice of Helen Thomas:

Earlier you said that you decided to take military action against Iraq only after Saddam "chose to deny inspectors." But Saddam accepted U.N. inspectors in November 2002, and on March 7, U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix requested more time for inspections, describing Iraq's cooperation as "proactive." In light of Blix's assessment, the U.N. Security Council refused to authorize an invasion. Is it not true that by threatening to launch war, you forced the inspectors to leave Iraq in March 2003?

You have repeatedly said that you made the decision to invade Iraq only after exhausting diplomatic efforts. Earlier in the press conference, you said that you didn't want war and that you "worked with world" to "solve this problem diplomatically." But did you not make clear to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a January 31, 2003, meeting that the United States intended to invade Iraq even if the U.N. inspections turned up no banned weapons and you failed to get a U.N. resolution authorizing war?