Howard Kurtz must not watch any of MSNBC's daytime coverage if he's going to paint the entire network as liberal and siding with the union members because of Ed Schultz's coverage of the protests in Wisconsin. Apparently he missed this.
If he wants to paint Ed Schultz, Cenk Uygur, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes who's filling in at night once in a while with that brush, that's fine. But don't pretend that most of the rest of their coverage has been anything other than either a mixed bag, full of half truths and false equivalencies or downright hostile the the people out there on the streets.
And you've just got to love someone from a network that's been openly promoting the astroturf "tea party" AND that has just hired Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch for some (cough) fair and balanced commentary, taking issue with Ed Schultz advocating for the union members.
So promoting the Koch brothers and their corporate funded protests and hiring a couple of flaming right wingers as part of your "Best Political Team on Television" is a-okay, but promoting working people who don't want their collective bargaining rights taken away is something a network anchor shouldn't be advocating for. Gotcha Howard.
Transcript via CNN below the fold.
KURTZ: Now, Christina talked about conflict driving, you know, a lot of media coverage. And there's been a lot of that in recent days in Wisconsin, where the new Republican governor, Scott Walker, not only trying to cut public employees' benefits, but limit their ability to do collective bargaining.
MSNBC has been all over this story, and Ed Schultz, the liberal host, has not only done his show from Madison, he seems to be functioning as a correspondent, and you would have to say kind of taking the side of the public union protesters. Let's take a brief look at Schultz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED SCHULTZ, HOST OF THE ED SCHULTZ SHOW: You want to turn your back on firefighters? You want to turn your back on police officers? You want to turn your back on nurses? You want to turn your back on brothers and sisters who have stood in solidarity to fight for middle class in America? Is that wrapping yourself in the flag?
CROWD: No!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Does it seem to you, Michael Medved, that MSNBC is taking one side of this debate in Wisconsin?
MEDVED: Well, there is no doubt that they are. And look, one of problems here is that this is a kind of thing that is a bipartisan challenge. Andrew Cuomo in the state of New York is actually getting serious, it would appear, about doing the same kinds of reforms of the pension problems that Scott Walker is a little bit ahead of curve on.
Look, just to disagree a little bit with John, where he says that there is no real urgency -- that President Obama is right to say you need to be more patient -- we are coming up to this debt extension vote. In other words, if we don't raise the debt ceiling, the government goes into default.
And that is very, very serious. I think that everybody can agree on that. And so, the need for some kind of plan to go forward, at least for the near-term future is immediate, it's pressing and yes, it's dramatic. And we all know that the press loves to cover dramatic things like Wisconsin and like confrontations on Capitol Hill.
ARAVOSIS: I think it's a bit of a phony analogy in the sense that I do want my government solving the problem of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in the next two weeks to deal with this sort of phony deadline we've been given with the budget limit. That's --
KURTZ: It's a deadline that it is extended routinely.
MEDVED: What's phony about the deadline?
ARAVOSIS: Two weeks? Michael --
MEDVED: What's phony about the deadline?
(CROSSTALK)
ARAVOSIS: Fair enough. Fair enough. But I don't think we should be solving them by putting a gun to our heads and saying, you know what, you better come up with an answer on a huge problem in two weeks or else.
BELLANTONI: They did have a year on this deficit commission. They did come out.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: All right. Well, it's going -- we're not going --
ARAVOSIS: It's not resolve yet.
KURTZ: All right. It's not going to be resolved in two weeks. It's not going to be resolved here.
