No, not the heavily edited mash-up job he did on Jon Stewart 2 shows ago, but the interview from yesterday when he had the nerve to ask Michele Bachmann if she was a flake. Bachmann, proving her flakiness, has refused to accept the apology:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/chris-wallace-apologizes-bachmann_n_885057.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FPolitics+%28Politics+on+The+Huffington+Post%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher * ** or: http://tinyurl.com/3jqn9hw* Stewart said he did not think Wallace took marching orders from the Fox corporate talking points memo - but apparently he does. I guess sometimes he forgets the "other side" of the news he is supposed to be presenting. Keep in mind, Wallace did not call her a flake, just served up a soft ball giving her the opportunity to re-package herself as a non-flake. All she had to say was "no Chris, - that's the perception of the liberal elites trying to ruin our country. There is nothing flaky about standing up for traditional American values". Bachmann has gotten to where she is (in the recent Iowa poll second front-runner for the Republican nomination for President) by delivering red meat quotes to the most radical, conservative extremist groups in the party. If she really wants to make the transition to a serious national candidate, she has to find a way to reinterpret her extremist views for a more mainstream audience. Or maybe not, if she only appears on Fox News, and the rest of their employees learn the lesson Wallace has about which questions can and can not be asked. And no, there is nothing even remotely sexist about the question - any male candidate, from either political pole who had burst on the national scene defined by such extremist rhetoric, would be asked the same kind of question (note that Obama burst on the national consciousness at the 2004 Democratic Convention giving a relentlessly moderate speech, not wearing a dashiki and a big afro god damning America). Huff Po: ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/michele-bachmann-quotes-_n_872256.html#s288337&title=Many_Scientists_Believe) has a sampling of some of her more extreme statements on one of their slideshows, including: Her claim that intelligent design is supported by a significant portion of the scientific community; her accusation that the Obama Administration runs a gangster government; her claim that legislation to reform regulation of the financial industry in the wake of the financial crisis was similar to the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini; her comment in New Hampshire that it was the state "where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord" (she did later admit she was wrong about that, though it was particularly flakey given the group she has made her name with); her public refusal to answer the Census questions ("Why does the government need our phone numbers?"); her claim that last year that the Obama administration was "turning our country into a nation of slaves."; her claim that Obama was trying to create re-education camps for young people"; and her warning that the US was considering abandoning "the dollar for a multinational currency." (appropriately for this thread, Politifact rated Bachmann's statement "False"). The point here is not that nobody who believes most or all of the above can be president of the USA ; the point is that while delivering these kinds of red meat lines can get you a lot of attention from an extreme base, if you want to run for president of the country you have to expect to be asked about them, and find a way to make them palatable to the mainstream. You can't just start crying and get your goons to get the president of Fox News to write a memo to the mean man who asked you about it on TV to say he is sorry (oh, wait, I guess you can). -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
