MRC president Brent Bozell appeared on Fox's The Kelly File on Friday night to discuss the ongoing network blackout of the IRS-targeting scandal, despite the explosive new revelations about Sen. Carl Levin ordering the IRS exempt-organizations branch to explore his suspicions about right-wing groups.
Appearing with guest host Martha MacCallum, Bozell made the point that the networks could spend 20 minutes energetically defending Hillary Clinton and her head injuries from Karl Rove's barbs, but not on the Obama scandals. (Video below)
In a Friday press statement, Bozell called the networks "allergic to the truth" about the IRS targeting:
MacCALLUM: So, the court order that produced those news e-mails this week came after a lawsuit, as I just mentioned from the watchdog group Judicial Watch. The news about Senator Levin's e-mails and the role of the IRS headquarters in Washington got picked up by a couple dozen newspapers, blogs and a few newscasts like this one. But our next guest says that it has been so far ignored by a broad part of the mainstream media. Brent Bozell is the president of the Media Research Center. Brent, good evening. Good to have you with us. So, why didn't they cover it?
BRENT BOZELL: Well, let's put the news in the proper perspective. The developments in the last week, the first thing that we know is that the documents that we're talking about were supposed to be delivered by the administration. It took Judicial Watch and a Freedom of Information Act to do what the government, what the Obama administration simply will not do, just like with Benghazi. These documents now confirmed it. And it's confirmed because Lois Lerner we now know was lying when she said that. Just like Benghazi saying it was a video. The third thing that we learned is that a United States senator was using his power to push the most feared arm of the federal government to persecute conservative organizations --
MacCALLUM: Brent, you know --
BOZELL: Like American for Prosperity --
MacCALLUM: You know what Carl Levin says about this. Carl Levin's office says, look, he was concerned that these groups were using their political abilities to sway people and they are not allowed to do politics, essentially, so he wanted them checked out, they also claim that he also investigated liberal groups, even though it was one I think, compared to 11.
BOZELL: Yes. They say that but it's conservative groups we're talking about. And what is the IRS going to do when a senior member, the United States Senate says, I want this done as if the IRS was the personal victim of Carl Levin. But this is what happens when it's a government out of control, and we have a government out of control. OK. So you've got those three major developments. So, the fourth development was, that the media thought there was no interest in this, ABC, NBC, CBS, not one second has been devoted to this. And to put that in its proper perspective. They were spending 20 minutes talking about Karl Rove and Hillary Clinton but zero seconds on these stories.
MacCALLUM: Brent, thank you very much. Something to think about. Good to see you tonight.
