I should probably save myself the aggravation and stop watching the darn show, but I continue to marvel at Meet the Press’ standards. Last week, it was Dr. Phil. This week, it was an example of the kind of ideological balance we’ve come to expect from the “liberal” media.
The first half of the show featured Colin Powell defending the Bush White House on everything from its tsunami response to the war in Iraq. It wasn’t exactly a hard-hitting interview: at one point, Powell offered an 800-word soliloquy uninterrupted.
Immediately afterwards, a four-journalist panel offered analysis for viewers. Two were neutral reporters (The Washington Post’s David Broder and Newsweek’s Evan Thomas) and two conservative commentators (The New York Times’ David Safire and National Review’s Kate O’Beirne). So, for those keeping score at home, the “balance” on the program was two on the right, two in the middle, and no one on the left.
The result was the kind of diversity of thought usually found on Fox News. When Tim Russert asked, for example, if there’d been too much criticism of Bush’s reaction to the tsunami devastation, Broder said the criticism has been “way overblown”; O’Beirne said the negative reaction “totally escapes me”; Safire said the administration is “right on the button”; and Thomas concluded, “I agree with that.”
Why bother having four people on if they’re all going to say the same thing?
The “balance” of the show provided viewers with one perspective in the first half-hour and the same perspective in the second. It would have been ridiculous on Fox News, but Meet the Press is supposed to be the best Sunday morning show on the air.
Paul Waldman envisioned a scenario that would have driven the right into convulsions.
What would the “watchdogs” on the right say if Tim Russert had on his panel David Broder, Evan Thomas, Paul Krugman, and Michael Tomasky of the American Prospect? They’d say that it was an absurdly tilted panel, proof of the press’ unceasing bias.
And they’d have a point. Of course, we’ll never see such a panel because the “liberal” media wouldn’t consider it.