NBC Gross Bias
by Lisa Fabrizio
Issue 109 - June 11, 2008

On his recent visit to Israel, President George W. Bush committed what much of our media and all of our leading Democrats considered a great offense; comparing people who seek a rational dialogue with Iran to Neville Chamberlain and others who sought conciliation with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. To liberals, this is the ultimate insult, which they claimed was aimed at Back Obama, and one that could not be taken lying down. So they protested.

Of course, that’s not what the president said, although you’d be hard-pressed to discover that by watching your network news, especially if your flavor of preference is of the NBC variety. The White House took NBC News to task in a letter which points out the network’s deception in an interview graciously granted them by President Bush on this subject.

When asked by NBC’s Richard Engel if he was referring to Obama in his remarks to the Israeli Knesset, Bush said:

People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolph Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon.

All but one sentence of this response was edited out of the televised interview as was the president’s answer to Engel’s follow-up question in which he stated that “And I have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a seat at the table for them if they would verifiably suspend their enrichment.”

Somehow, the media missed erstwhile presidential candidate, Gary Hart, who recently warned that “radical forces, usually called neoconservatives, [have] perverted language as recommended by the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany.” He claimed that the right’s strategy is:

“Continue to demonize liberals, blame them for all social and economic problems, and soon enough no one will be willing to admit to being a liberal. Claim that liberals and Democrats are too soft to combat terrorists and soon enough a majority, even in the oldest democracy on earth, will believe it.”

NBC distorting President Bush’s message and missing one by a prominent Democrat that did make the charge directly is gross bias of the worst sort. And we right-wing radical forces didn’t even need to pervert any language to demonstrate who is trying to demonize whom.

Lisa Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from Connecticut.