Meet The Unconscious Press

Posted by Bob Lord

It really sucks that so many people rely almost exclusively on TV for information.

I’m doing something I almost never do — watch Sunday morning television. I’m currently watching Sunday Square Off, and Braham Resnick actually did a pretty good job of helping Andy Thomas make an ass of himself.

I was much, much less impressed with Meet the Press. The topic of course was the so-called war on women and for the point and counterpoint segment they had Kirsten Gillebrand and Michele Bachman. The point that Bachman hammered was how Obama’s policies had caused gasoline prices to double during his term. I’m guessing every reader of this blog knows what a bullshit charge that is. The oil market is a world market. Obama’s policies could not materially impact world prices. And, even if drill baby drill could impact world prices, it would take years for new drilling to have such an impact.

Although Bachman repeated this charge three times, nobody remotely questioned her on it. I understand why Gillebrand didn’t. She had her own points to make, and didn’t want to be distracted. That makes sense. But where was David Gregory? He didn’t confront the misinformation at all. That might be ok if it was just an incidental misstatement, but this was a point she was hammering. Worse, when the show turned to the panel discussion, they spoke about how women are more sensitive to the price of things like milk and gasoline. That‘s probably correct, but when the panel made this point as an acknowledgment of Bachman’s remarks, it had the obvious effect of validating her spurious charge that Obama caused gasoline prices to rise. That’s incompetent journalism. That’s being asleep at the switch.

So, score one for Bachman, Mitt Romney and the Tea Party, with a huge assist from NBC.