Tag Archives: media bias debate

Rasmussen Finds Most ‘Angry’ with Liberal, Pro-Obama Media

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds most Americans (51%) say the average reporter is more liberal than they are, and nearly as many (48%) think the media are “are trying to help”  President Obama pass his left-wing agenda. Perhaps as a result, the poll finds an astonishing two-thirds of the public (66%) say they are angry with the media, “including 33% who are very angry” with the press. Most Americans seem to have a low view of journalists’ integrity and professionalism. Rasmussen discovered that “68% say most reporters when covering a political campaign try to help the candidate they want to win,” vs. 23% who think most reporters “try to offer unbiased coverage.” At the same time, “54% of voters think most reporters would hide any information they uncovered that might hurt a candidate they wanted to win, up seven points from November 2008.” Rasmussen also discovered that Republicans and independents are most offended by the media, with a plurality of Democrats (43%) who “say their coverage is unbiased.” This new poll is consistent with many others from the past decade showing rising discontent with the press and a growing awareness of the media’s liberal bias. The Media Research Center has posted a collection of relevant polls — along with polls of journalists showing how their views differ from the general public — on our “ Media Bias 101 ” page. Here’s an excerpt from the June 15 report by Rasmussen, based on their poll of 1,000 likely voters conducted on Sunday and Monday (June 13-14). Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who are very angry…. Now 48% of voters think most reporters when they write or talk about President Obama are trying to help the president pass his agenda. Only 18% think most reporters are trying to block the president from passing his agenda. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say they are simply interested in reporting the news in an unbiased manner…. Fifty-one percent (51%) say the average reporter is more liberal than they are, consistent with earlier findings on the question. Fifteen percent (15%) say the average reporter is more conservative than they are, while 27% say the average reporter shares roughly the same ideological views that they have…. Seventy-six percent (76%) of GOP voters and 56% of unaffiliateds think most reporters are trying to help Obama pass his agenda. Among Democrats, 33% say they are trying to block the president’s agenda, while 43% say their coverage is unbiased. Just 15% of Democrats say most reporters are trying to help the president. You can read the entire report here .

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Brent Bozell Reacts to Americans’ Heightened Anger with the Media

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Managing Editor’s Note: The following is a statement that NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell released earlier today. Americans have spoken and they are livid with the media. A new Rasmussen poll found an astonishing two thirds of American voters are at least somewhat angry at the media, including an entire one third who said they are ‘very angry.’ That’s disturbing but unfortunately, not surprising. The liberal media lost touch with the public and fair reporting long ago, and Americans are sick of their lavish praise for a President that is leading our country and economy into a disastrous state. The American people are abandoning the old media by the millions because they are simply fed up.” Now is the time for the national, so-called “news” media to Tell The Truth! and report the facts. The American people are furious and are demanding answers.

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Brent Bozell Reacts to Americans’ Heightened Anger with the Media

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Follow-up: AP TV Says Etheridge ‘Mandhandles’ Questioner; Text Coverage Goes Soft

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It would appear, based on the graphic tease reproduced at the right and the underlying content, that the folks putting together videos at the Associated Press didn’t get the memo that they should go as soft as possible on North Carolina Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge. Etheridge arguably committed assault ” last week ” when approached on a public street. The description of what occurred and its aftermath at AP video is quite a bit stronger than what is found in AP Reporter Martha Waggoner’s Monday evening text report , as you will see shortly. Despite having over 400 words with which to work, Waggoner also failed to record a comment — or even a “no comment” — from anyone else in the Democratic Party, or to give any indication that she or anyone else at AP tried to contact House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, any other Democrat in a leadership position, or anyone in the Obama administration. Here’s what the video and accompanying description look like in the AP’s raw video : Now let’s look how Waggoner chose to describe the physical actions that occurred (bolded), and how obsessed she is with the video’s origins: A Democratic congressman apologized Monday after video posted online showed him swatting at the camera , demanding that two men taping him identify themselves and grabbing one of them by the wrist and neck . “I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved,” Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina said in a statement. “No matter how intrusive and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response.” The video was posted on websites owned by Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Web entrepreneur who also released video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute. It shows two men approaching Etheridge with a camera on a Washington street. He swats at the camera and repeatedly asks the men who they are. When they say they are students, he grabs one by the wrist and quickly by the back of the neck before pulling him against his side. … In a telephone interview from London, Breitbart declined to name the students who recorded the video, saying he wanted to protect them. The two do not work for Breitbart and were not paid, he said. A Breitbart employee found the video online, edited it and posted it, he said. A story accompanying the video on a Breitbart website says the video was recorded last week. Etheridge declined to say when the encounter occurred. As was the case with the AP’s unbylined initial report discussed yesterday (at NewsBusters ; at BizzyBlog ), Waggoner did not go to any legal experts to get their opinion as to whether Etheridge’s actions could be seen as an instance of criminal assault. It’s not an argumentative leap to say that the if a Republican or conservative had committed such an action, the AP and other establishment media outlets would not be leaving the GOP leadership and other party members alone, would be giving the incident far more play than it has received thus far, and would likely be using stronger words to describe the physical aspects of what happened. In fact, a post to follow shortly will discuss a shoving incident from three years ago in which a Republican politician was involved that was deemed to be news at a publication where the Etheridge incident was ignored. Stay tuned. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Follow-up: AP TV Says Etheridge ‘Mandhandles’ Questioner; Text Coverage Goes Soft

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Clyburn, Boiled Down: We’ll Never Stop Blaming Bush

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Real Clear Politics currently has a video highlighting statements by Democratic Congressman James Clyburn Jr. of South Carolina. It teases the video with a question asked by Candy Crowley of CNN. Once one sees the entire sequence, it’s clear that Clyburn really answered Crowley’s question before she even asked it. Here’s the full transcript of the vid, which begins after Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence had apparently made some points about how steps taken by the Obama administration to revive the economy to the point where it generates meaningful job growth aren’t working. Clyburn’s answer to when his party will stop blaming Bush is in bold: Clyburn: Uh, Congressman Spence, uh, Pence keeps talkin’ about, uh, the fact that, uh, we are, uh, failing in our approach. We all know exactly what this president inherited, and we will stop talkin’ about that inheritance, uh, when uh Congressman uh Pence and others stop talkin’ about takin’ us back uh to those failed policies. We’re trying to correct some things that we had absolutely nothin’ to do with, and the American people know that. And I would wish that all of us would get on board this in bipartisan approaches to tryin’ and get our economy stabilized, tryin’ to get our children educated, tryin’ to get workin’ men and women back to, uh, on their jobs, and look for the future, look to the future with — Crowley: Congressman? Clyburn: — a little more, uh compassion and bipartisanship. Crowley: Congressman, I think nobody disagrees with you on the goals. I think that one of the questions that’s cropping up now is, when does the statute of limitations run out on blaming the Bush administration and when is it on you all as the governing — really in the House and the Senate and the White House. When does the economy, uh, become your baby, so to speak? Clyburn: The economy is our baby. But let’s stop talkin’ about cuttin’ taxes, cuttin’ taxes, cuttin’ taxes. That simplistic approach to tryin’ to get this economy movin’ again, it’s what got us in this, uh-uh, position in the first place. We just had an across the board cut on 95% of workin’ men and women, they got an across the board tax cut. You all know that. Pence attempted to get in a word or two edgewise during Clyburn’s final two sentences and got nowhere, though Crowley got to him immediately after that. One can also hear Pence chuckling in the background as Crowley asks here “statute of limitations” question. “Congressman Pence and others” clearly have no plans to “stop talkin’ about takin’ us back to those failed policies” — policies that worked reasonably well from 2003 to 2007 , by the way, despite the sand-in-the-wheels impact of the Sarbanes Oxley law. Therefore, the short version of Clyburn’s answer to the question of when the Bush blame game will stop is, “When you guys shut up.” The one-word version is really, “Never.” As to Clyburn’s contention that “We’re trying to correct some things that we had absolutely nothin’ to do with,” it’s time to remind him and everyone else of the true origins of the housing and mortgage lending bubble. They have everything to do with government-sponsored, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and nothing to do with George Bush, who tried — perhaps not hard enough, but genuinely tried — to stop the madness emanating from those two entities. The full scope of what these Democrat crony-controlled perpetrated on the nation didn’t become fully known until late last year. It wasn’t “only” lax credit standards, which would have been bad enough. Beyond that, as I noted on December 31 (last item at link; a column with a more complete treatment of the topic is here ), there was pervasively fraudulent loan packaging: … it’s hard to overstate the relevance of this paragraph from Peter J. Wallison in the Wall Street Journal , because it should end the debate over who is primarily responsible for the housing and mortgage-lending messes: “There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.” The two Democrat-crony government-sponsored enterprises created an artificial market for subprime mortgages by bilking investors for 15 years . If they hadn’t done this, subprimes would never have been able to expand to their mortally dangerous levels. Further, the victims of the misrepresentations logically would appear to include the rating agencies that some state attorneys general are going after as the supposed culprits. Sorry, Mr. Clyburn, your party and its cronies had everything to do with it. The only reason much of the American public doesn’t know this is because reporters like Candy Crowley haven’t educated themselves about what Fan and Fred really did, and therefore won’t challenge your full-of-baloney assertions. Or worse, they know and let it slide. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Leaked ObamaCare Docs Ignore Costs of the Law’s Mandates in ‘De-Grandfathering’ Estimates

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Friday, Investors Business Daily (IBD) reported on leaked government documents identifying what employer-provided health plans can and cannot do if they wish to retain their “grandfathered” status under the statist health care legislation commonly known as ObamaCare that became law on March 23. One of the items in the government document ( 83-page PDF ) is the following table, which estimates the percentages of large and small employers who will choose to “relinquish” (i.e., give up) their grandfathered status: In ironic timing, Walecia Konrad at the New York Times, in a personal finance column that appeared in the paper’s Saturday print edition and which was probably written shortly before IBD’s report, inadvertently revealed that ObamaCare itself may be a reason why employer “relinquishments” over the next three years come in well above the mid-range estimates in the table: As in years past, employers are also grappling with how to offset rising health care costs. Recent years have brought an average cost increase of about 9 percent, said Tracy Watts, a partner at Mercer Health and Benefits. In most cases, companies have been able to absorb about 6 percentage points of those cost increases a year, passing the rest onto employees. This year Ms. Watts estimates that changes made in response to the health law will add an extra 2 to 3 percent in cost increases , pressuring employers to engage in even more cost-sharing with employees — whether through higher premiums, co-payments or other out-of-pocket costs. (Senior vice president at Fidelity Consulting Services Pearce) Weaver also reports increased interest by employers in high-deductible insurance plans. “They’ve been effective in managing costs,” he said. The estimates tabulated above are based on a review of employer plan design changes made from 2008 to 2009. The government did not attempt to look at what might have happened if “an extra 2 to 3 percent” in ObamaCare-driven costs had been piled into the mix. Facing a higher mandated cost structure even beyond increases in the cost of health care services, many employers will find themselves unable to redesign their plans within ObamaCare’s tight grandfathering constraints while remaining competitive (or possibly viable), and will choose to relinquish, i.e., “de-grandfather.” The government’s document says that a de-grandfathered employer has two choices: “Significantly change the terms of the plan or coverage and comply with Affordable Care Act provisions from which grandfathered health plans are excepted; or in the case of a plan sponsor, cease to offer any plan.” To “comply with Affordable Care Act provisions,” an employer would have to offer a plan with ObamaCare’s specified minimum coverage levels, which are far higher and far more expensive than typical private plans, or, conceivably, offer coverage that is even better. Left unstated by the government is the fact that employers above a certain very small workforce threshold who “cease to offer any plan” must pay a payroll-based penalty for not doing so. Unless I’m missing something, the government’s grandfathering regs as drafted also close off the “high-deductible plan” option Konrad cited above. That’s because, as IBD reported, an employer plan will be de-grandfathered if: “It eliminates benefits related to diagnosis or treatment of a particular condition.” “It increases the percentage of a cost-sharing requirement (such as co-insurance) above its level as of March 23, 2010.” “It increases the fixed amount of cost-sharing such as deductibles or out-of-pocket limits by a total percentage measured from March 23, 2010, that is more than the sum of medical inflation plus 15 percentage points.” “It increases co-payments from March 23, 2010, by an amount that is the greater of: medical inflation plus 15 percentage points or medical inflation plus $5.” “The employer’s share of the premium decreases more than 5 percentage points below what the share was on March 23, 2010.” Beyond that, the ObamaCare-driven “extra 2 to three percent” to which the Times’s Konrad refers above may be low. One mandate alone may (I would say probably will) cause costs to increase by about that amount. This was explained in a May 25 item found at the Society for Human Resources Management (bold is mine): The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released estimates in May 2010 of the costs and benefits of the requirement to cover adult children up to age 26, as part of a regulation directing employers and insurers on how to carry it out. The new benefit is estimated by HHS to cost $3,380 for each dependent, raising premiums by 0.7 percent in 2011 for employer plans, according to the department’s mid-range estimate. Some 1.2 million young adults are expected to sign up, more than half of whom would have been uninsured. … there are concerns about the impact of adverse selection with this population. That is, prior to 2014 when all Americans must secure health care coverage, healthy young adults may chose to forgo coverage through their parent’s plan, while the estimated one in six young adults with chronic health issues would be the most likely to accept coverage under their parent’s plan. This self-selection for coverage by the least healthy could result in higher coverage costs than the estimates presented above. … Bruce Davis, health and group benefits national practice leader at HR consultancy Findley Davies … said as of May 2010 his firm is forecasting an additional cost increase of 2 to 2.5 percent to account for the unknown cost of adding adult children, and an overall health care cost trend increase of around 11 percent for 2011. Exit questions: What in this so-called “Affordable Health Care Act” is really “affordable”? Who else (if anyone) in the establishment press will meaningfully address how obviously and utterly untrue the president’s core promise to employees (“If you like your coverage, you can keep it?) has become less than 90 days since ObamaCare passed? Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Maher: Media ‘Way Too Stupid’ to Understand Israel/Palestine Conflict, So They Side with the Palestinians

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It wasn’t us who said this. Instead, it’s one of their own – an outspoken openly liberal talk show with a cynical view of the mainstream media. On the June 11 Web portion of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” called “Overtime,” Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offered the argument there is not a pro-Israel bias in the media, which is often alleged. “The idea that there is a pro-Israeli bias in the broad media – whatever ‘the media’ means at this point, I strongly disagree with,” Meacham said. “I think if anything you run into a very strong feeling on the Palestinian side.” That led another panelist on Maher’s show, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to protest by asking who is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel in politics or media. “Who speaks out publicly in a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli way in mainstream American politics, or media?” Maddow asked. Aside from the obvious answer – Helen Thomas, the media have attacked Israel time and time and time again. (One might suggest Maddow spend some time reading NewsBusters if she is looking for answers.) However, that prompted Maher to say the media are anti-Israel, pro-Palestine. And he offered a reason why. [Emphasis added] “I think most of them do because I think the media, to take up your point, mostly – is way too stupid to understand the issues ,” Maher said. “So what they do is they go toward, ‘Oh, who’s a victim?’ And yes, their situation in Gaza is tragic. But partly it is tragic of their own making.”

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Leaked Draft Treasury Docs: Majority of Employer Health Plans Won’t Be ‘Grandfathered’

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Earlier this year, in his “Can we lose health coverage? Yes we can” column, syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock made a point asserted in dozens if not hundreds of columns and reports during the hide-and-seek legistlative process that ultimately led to the passage of what is commonly known as ObamaCare: The President’s core promise relating to the statist health care legislation that ultimately became law in March — namely that “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what” — could not and would not be kept. In that column, Murdock quoted Cato Institute analyst Michael Cannon as follows: “Obama’s definition of ‘meaningful’ coverage could eliminate the health plans that now cover as many as half of the 159 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance, plus more than half of the roughly 18 million Americans in the individual market. … This could compel close to 90 million Americans to switch to more comprehensive health plans with higher premiums, whether they value the added coverage or not.” In a late Friday afternoon blog post followed by a fuller early evening report , David Hogberg and Sean Higgins at Investors Business Daily confirmed that Obama’s never-credible core promise is on the brink of being shattered, and that the employer-related calculations by Cato’s Cannon were essentially correct (graphically illustrated by IBD at the top right): Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare. Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans. The “midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013,” according to the document. In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law. …. The 83-page document, a joint project of the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the IRS, examines the effects that ObamaCare’s regulations would have on existing, or “grandfathered,” employer-based health care plans. Draft copies of the document were reportedly leaked to House Republicans during the week and began circulating Friday morning. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., posted it on his Web site Friday afternoon. … In a statement, Posey said the document showed that the arguments in favor of ObamaCare were a “bait and switch.” … (A White House) source conceded: “It is difficult to predict how plans and employers will behave in the coming years, but if plans make changes that negatively impact consumers, then they will lose their grandfather status.” … In total, 66% of small businesses and 47% of large businesses made a change in their health care plans last year that would have forfeited their grandfathered status. When one looks at the list of what would cause a plan to get de-grandfathered compiled by Hogberg and Higgins, it’s easy to see why the percentages are so large. The referenced Treasury document (an 83-page PDF ) lays out how employers might react to the new law on Page 36: Page Plan sponsors and issuers can decide to: 1. Continue offering the plan or coverage in effect on March 23, 2010 with limited changes, and thereby retain grandfathered status; 2. Significantly change the terms of the plan or coverage and comply with Affordable Care Act provisions from which grandfathered health plans are excepted; or 3. In the case of a plan sponsor, cease to offer any plan. Option 1 would be nice, but as the IBD reporters noted in the bolded paragraph in the excerpt above, most employers would have run afoul of it during the past year. This means that they would have been forced into Options 2 or 3. Employers choosing Option 2 would have to buy pre-designed and very expensive coverage through the bill’s health insurance exchanges. Employers choosing Option 3 would force their employees to buy pre-designed and very expensive coverage through those same exchanges. If the legislation stands, the end result over a not very long time will be that the large majority of employers and employees will be stuck in the exchanges, the roach motels of health care — Once you go in, you can’t come out. Statist mission accomplished. The Associated Press has noticed the story too, but with the weakest of headlines: “Health overhaul to force changes in employer plans.” The content isn’t much better. Earth to AP reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar: ObamaCare, as predicted by so many during the previous year by experts most of the establishment press willfully ignored, will cause many employers to drop their insurance entirely. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Chuck Todd Rips ‘Unreliable’ Rasmussen, Doesn’t Mind Liberal Polling Firm Even Kos Rejected

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Media bias often shows itself in which organizations journalists choose to cite or ignore. A very prevalent form of this bias is selective reporting on polling data–polls that show results friendly to the liberal position like are touted while those that show the opposite are buried. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, pictured right, is the latest reporter to demonstrate such a bias. He took Rasmussen Reports to task on Twitter yesterday, claiming it is “has a horrible track record and us [sic] proven to be unreliable” and is really “[n]ot a serious polling firm.” Todd said he would only report on “numbers from a more reliable pollster.” Apparently one such pollster, in the mind of Todd’s cable network at least, is Research 2000. But R2K was recently rated one of the least reliable major polling firms in existence by liberal statistician Nate Silver. R2K was not even accurate enough for the Daily Kos, which officially dropped the firm on Wednesday. Rasmussen, in contrast, was rated relatively highly in Silver’s study, at 15th out of the 63 firms that have conducted 10 or more polls. R2K came in at a paltry 59th. But R2K’s findings have nonetheless been touted on MSNBC in discussing the Nevada Senate race, the very topic on which Todd refused to even consider Rasmussen’s findings. Of course Todd does not speak for all of MSNBC, but where were his protestations when a colleague used poll data significantly less reliable than the unserious, unreliable Rasmussen, with its “horrible track record”? And if Silver’s numbers are not good enough for Todd, consider Rasmussen’s actual performance in the last three election cycles. Rasmussen’s track record is far from “horrible,” as Todd claims. As Greg Pollowitz notes , he’s consistently one of the more accurate pollsters out there. Here are his results from 2008 , 2006 ( Senate and governors ) and 2004 . Consider the races Nevada: in 2008 Rasmussen’s final poll had Obama over McCain, 55–43. The vote went for Obama, 50–46. (Rasmussen can hardly be accused of skewing Republican there). In the 2006 Nevada governor’s race, the final poll had Gibbons over Titus, 48–44. The election result was Gibbons, 48–46. And in the 2004 presidential race, the final poll had Bush over Kerry, 50–48. The vote tally was Bush, 49–47. One of the digs lately against Rasmussen is that his 2008 polls are showing a Republican house effect that wasn’t there in other years. Nate Silver has what I think is a fair look at Rasmussen and this development.  I assume this is what Chuck Todd is referring to when he calls Rasmussen “unreliable.” The bottom line is we won’t know the answer until November, but if Rasmussen’s past performance is any indication, Harry Reid is in deep trouble. And I think Reid knows it.

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough Continues Defense of Obama; Comparisons to Katrina ‘Obscene’

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Joe Scarborough continued his open defense of the Obama administration’s response to the BP oil spill, on Wednesday’s “Morning Joe.” Facing off against Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Scarborough called comparisons of the president’s handling of the current crisis with Bush’s handling of Katrina “obscene.” “Behind the scenes, President Obama from day one was actually very engaged,” Scarborough argued. “[Obama] told his White House staff ‘This is job one,’ ordered all of the agencies to throw the full force of the federal government behind this. I mean…we’ve got the minutes of the meeting from April 22 where he said that.” Rep. King countered that the administration lacked style in its handling of the crisis, and took eight days to declare it a “matter of national significance.” Though Scarborough said that President Obama has done everything of “substance” to respond to the spill, King also asked Scarborough what more President Bush could have done to handle the Katrina crisis. “What could George Bush have done?” Scarborough asked. “A hell of a lot.” “This is one of the most obscene comparisons, between Katrina and BP,” Scarborough spat out. “I was on the ground from day one. I can tell you the federal government was not there. The state government was not there. The local government was not there.” “No, you’re wrong, You’re wrong. That is not FEMA’s job,” Rep. King shot back. “That is the job of the mayor and the governor for the first two or three days.” A transcript of the show’s segment is as follows: MORNING JOE June 9, 2010 8:06a.m.–8:09a.m. JOE SCARBOROUGH: But–but–but Peter, you do understand–you do though understand, Peter, that behind the scenes President Obama from day one was actually very engaged, told his White House staff ‘this is job one,’ and ordered all of the agencies to throw the full force of the federal government behind this. I mean we’ve got that actual–we’ve got the minutes of the meeting from April 22 where he said that. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It’s actually also in a press release released to the media. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right. So is this about substance, or is this about style? REP. PETER KING (R-N.Y.): It’s both. It’s about leadership. And the fact is, it did take them–what–eight days to even declare this a matter of national significance. You know, leadership and style–Ronald Reagan had it, Franklin Roosevelt had it, John Kennedy had it, Bill Clinton had it in Oklahoma City. And you have to show–you have to connect with the American people. If you lose the American people on an issue like this, you’re going to hurt your administration, you know, for the next two years. SCARBOROUGH: So Peter, let me ask you, technically, can you name one thing that you would have done if you were running the White House operation technically, that Barack Obama did not do? REP. KING: I would have paid more attention to Gov. Jindal. I think Gov. Jindal is showing leadership, in fact, he wanted those berms off the coast. I think that is something that should have been done, that should have made more attention to him– SCARBOROUGH: But–but–but–but if you put the berms off the coast, that pushes the oil over to Mississippi. That may be great for Louisiana. I don’t think Haley would have liked that a whole hell of a lot. REP. KING: Well…the President should have engaged with Gov. Jindal. He didn’t engage with the Louisiana delegation, didn’t engage with Gov. Jindal, and he stayed away. And again, what more could President Bush have done with Katrina? The fact is, people like you are very critical of him. (Crosstalk) JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me tell you–I’ll gladly tell you. I went down to Katrina the day after, and I can tell you unlike Florida, the year before, where we had four hurricanes, FEMA wasn’t there on the ground. The National Guard wasn’t there on the ground. (Crosstalk) SCARBOROUGH: This is one of the most obscene comparisons between Katrina and BP. I was on the ground from day one. I can tell you the federal government was not there. The state government was not there. The local government was not there. I saw children walking around in dirty diapers that they had been wearing for three days, four days. I saw kids wandering the streets of Biloxi and across Louisiana without any water, three days into it. What could George Bush have done? A hell of a lot. REP. KING: No, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. That is not FEMA’s job. That is the job of the mayor and the governor for the first two or three days. (Crosstalk) REP. KING: And you’re wrong, you’re wrong. SCARBOROUGH: No I’m not wrong! Peter! I’m in Pensacola, Florida. We have Ivan the year before and they’re flying supply planes in from Washington, D.C. the next day. Come on, Peter. I don’t tell you what’s happening in Long Island Sound. Don’t tell me what’s happening on the Gulf Coast. REP. KING: Joe, I’m telling you that everything that was done could have been done, until– the federal government does not come in until the third or fourth day. There was a failure of leadership by Mayor Nagin, by Governor Blanco, and Haley Barbour did a great job in Mississippi, Bob Riley did a great job in Alabama.     

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough Continues Defense of Obama; Comparisons to Katrina ‘Obscene’

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