George H. W. Bush
On Tuesday's Amanpour & Co. on PBS, NPR hoste Michel Martin did an interview with Stuart Stevens, one of those GOP strategists who became red-hot Never Trumpers. Stevens insisted "the original sin of the modern Republican party is race," and Martin used that to rip into Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush....inaccurately.
One year ago today, on November 30, 2018, George H.W. Bush passed away. And while there was some very positive coverage, MSNBC and CNN made sure to hammer the former President for “racial animus.” He was, after all, a Republican. During live coverage on December 1, just hours after Bush’s death, MSNBC analyst Eddie Glaude insisted, “We have to bring up with Willie Horton.” Glaude sneered, “Dukakis was leading and then that ad started running. And the way in which he appealed to racial animus.”
The broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) seemed to be in such a rush to praise Perot for his performance ’92 that they forgot to mention his age until the very last moments of their reports (as the transcripts below show). In fact, they focused so much on celebrating the effect he had on the election that only one of them (CBS Evening News) cared to mention how he died. But that too seemed like an afterthought.
When Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough runs out of things to use in slamming President Trump, the MSNBC anchor is more than happy to instead roast someone who is a member of the GOP official’s administration. That was the case on Monday, when Scarborough used an interview of Mike Pompeo by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to hammer the secretary of state as “a joke” and “a disgrace” who “made a fool of himself” while lying for the President.
Appearing as a guest on Thursday's CNN Tonight to preview the network's upcoming special on the Bush political family, CNN historian Tim Naftali was true to form as a CNN analyst as he praised President George H.W. Bush for, among other things, raising taxes, stating that he "owed it to all Americans," as he also complained that Bush ran a "dreadful" campaign in 1988, obviously referring to the Willie Horton issue.
Crying “hate” is a lazy way to debate. But in the Beltway, where honest discussion and vigorous deliberation are desperately needed, the rhetorical sloth is so thick you need a Big Foot circular saw to cut it. Take Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who thrust a Liberian immigrant, Linda Clark, into the limelight as her State of the Union special guest and poster child. “She has lived here over 18 years,” Rep. Omar lamented, “and there's no reason she should be taken from her family.” Ahead of the annual address to Congress on Tuesday, Rep. Omar blasted President Donald Trump for “threatening to deport” Clark and “thousands of Liberians for no reason other than hate.”
In a statement that most modern liberals would consider to be blasphemous, “Vice” movie director Adam McKay told the Daily Beast that President Trump has done “nowhere near the damage” to America that Bush and Cheney did.
WASHINGTON -- Now that America has had its holiday from politics, we can get back to poking one another in the eye, and otherwise breaking the rules of decorum for the ladies and gentlemen of public life. Our holiday from politics was occasioned by the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, as fine a gent as has entered public life in decades. Every testimonial delivered to him last week was deserved, save one.
During Sunday’s Global Public Square, CNN host Fareed Zakaria’s tribute to former President George H.W. Bush involved him touting the President’s famous leadership and demeanor. But it was a backhanded compliment seeing as how Zakaria attributed those aspects of Bush 41 to his pervasive white privilege.
In a column she wrote over the weekend, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times joined a long list of media personalities who have used the death of President George H.W. Bush to trash President Trump. Dowd contrasted the “narcissistic, amoral, vulgar reality-TV president” with the “modest, principled, classy, old-world president.” She made similar comments Wednesday’s edition of MTP Daily: “in this era of covering white-collar crimes and porn stars and vulgarity...it was nice to look back to someone who was trying to represent decency and civility...that modesty is such contrast to Trump’s endless odyssey of narcissistic self-discovery.” One could just as easily say that Dowd’s descriptions of Bush in 2018 are in such contrast to her comments about him in 1990.
While invoking the passing of former President George H. W. Bush, CNN International and PBS host Christiane Amanpour fretted on Thursday’s show that “[a]s President Bush One is laid to rest, one of the Senate’s true moderates heads home in defeat,” blaming it on “conservative dark money,” “negative ads,” and a refusal by voters to accept McCaskill’s manufactured image as someone right down the middle.
Thursday, the media continued bringing President Trump into their live coverage of former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral proceedings. Instead of comparing their presidencies, ABC took it a step further late Thursday, with two of its journalists crudely mocking how President Trump’s own funeral would be different.