Meet the cheating press.
“I want you to listen to this Bill Barr answer to a question about what will history say about this,” Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press, said to commentator Peggy Noonan last Sunday.
That last “this” referred to the Justice Department dropping charges against General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former National Security Advisor.
As the “tape” rolled, we witnessed CBS senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge ask, “When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written?”
“Well, history’s written by the winners,” responded Attorney General Bill Barr. “So it largely depends on who’s writing the history.”
“I was struck, Peggy, by the cynicism of the answer,” Chuck chimes in as the clip ends. “It’s a correct answer. But he’s the attorney general. He didn’t make the case that he was upholding the rule of law. He was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job.”
If only NBC retained a peacock feather’s worth of credibility, you might be surprised by the rest of the story: in the interview CBS News had broadcast, Barr’s answer was more extensive.
“But I think a fair history,” Barr went on, without pause after what NBC presented to viewers (above), “would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law.”*
After cutting Barr’s specific “rule of law” contention, Todd then claimed he made no such argument.
On its website, NBC has added an editor’s note to the Meet the Press transcript, clarifying that they “inadvertently and inaccurately cut short a video clip of an interview with AG Barr.”**
Without bothering to provide the full statement.
From Mr. Todd? No comment.
From us — shock?
No, merely well-informed disgust.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* “It upheld the standards of the Department of Justice,” Barr continued, “and it undid what was an injustice.”
** “And there you go,” MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough charged last Friday, using the same dishonest editing of Barr’s remarks, “. . . that tells you all you need to know. Might makes right. The rule of law doesn’t matter.” Editors at The New York Times did likewise.
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