Meredith Vieira: “It sounds like you’re trying to organize your base by going after the media. Trying to shut us up. That’s what it feels like”
On Today this morning, Vieira claimed that it was only “blogs” that went after Sarah Palin’s family matters. For those of you that actually pay attention, this is what started it all.
JOHN ROBERTS(CNN): You know, there’s one other issue ” we’ve talked about her experience and what depth of experience she has; the fact that maybe she tries to peel off a few women voters on the Democratic side, who really wanted to see a woman in the White House in some way, shape, or form. There’s also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome.
DANA BASH: Yes.
ROBERTS(CNN): The baby is just slightly more than four months old now. Children with Down’s syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?
From there, it went to this. And with a language warning, I send you to the archives of Ace of Spades. Ace has probably the best material to show you what it is that the press and the bloggers for the MSM have put out there. Read it. Of course, releasing the SSN is not a real swift move either.
Mark point out the exchange between Vieira and McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt:
That left her vulnerable to McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt’s zinger, pointing out that one of her own network’s anchors had questioned Palin’s ability to serve as vice-president while attending to her children’ needs.
Schmidt was presumably referring to Brian Williams. As we noted yesterday in Williams Hides Behind Pantsuits to Take ‘Who’s Minding Baby?’ Shot, the Nightly News anchor, on MSNBC yesterday, asked former Mass. governor Jane Swift:
“Are the women who consider themselves feminists, and are perhaps working women with several children, are they wrong when they express fears or doubts that she should be able to do this, that she should be doing this?”
So Brian Williams of NBC and John Roberts of CNN have both asked the question. (For the record, Williams has a blog that he cites time and again on his program.) This is Vieira’s reaction:
MEREDITH VIEIRA: A lot of press bashing at the convention: we are suddenly the enemy. Why is that?
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, Meredith, I think there was a lot of anger at the coverage of a private family matter with regard to Governor Palin –
VIEIRA:Â But those were blogs, Steve. That wasn’t the mainstream press.
SCHMIDT: But the press, Meredith, plays a very important role in these campaigns. And one of the things that makes our country great is the free working press. The system doesn’t work without the press. A free press is one of the foundations –
VIEIRA: And it’s the press’s job, Steve, to ask questions.
SCHMIDT: Of course it is, and it’s their job to ask questions of Senator Obama, too. And we hope we’ll have some questions asked of Senator Obama as we move forward during the remainder of this race. We look forward to the scrutiny, both Senator McCain and Governor Palin –
VIEIRA: But Steve, you go on the attack. I don’t know that you look forward to the scrutiny, because you go immediately on the attack. It sounds like you’re trying to organize your base by going after the media. Trying to shut us up. That’s what it feels like.
SCHMIDT: I think that’s wrong, Meredith. But when an anchor on your network says, can Governor Palin do her duties because she has a Down syndrome child, we object to that. We think it’s outrageous and inappropriate.
I highlighted the Obama reference because, as we know, the press has yet to actually ask him any tough questions. Schmidt got that in along with the fact that, yes, it is the MSM asking if a woman can work and raise a child. The fact that this child has Down’s Syndrome is not relevant. The Down’s Syndrome is being used as an excuse for a sexist question to be asked:
As detailed here, ABC’s Bill Weir said to McCain campaign political director: “The Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won’t affect the other in the next couple of months? . . . She has an infant — she has an infant with special needs. Will that affect her campaigning?”
Isn’t it 2008? Aren’t we on the cusp of a whole lot of cures or life saving treatments for horrendous diseases? Just about to move into a new era of alternative energies? As the scientists are working on that, don’t they have the ability to do everything except procreate and pee with their cell phone? Yea, I thought so too. I guess in 2008, I kinda expected that women were more than a statistic for the MSM to throw out there when it suited their story. I was under the impression that a woman could give birth, run a house, a business, buy a car, a boat or a plane. What I didn’t expect was that a woman would have to answer for those things.
See also A Palin cone of silence?
According to Jay Carney at Time, the strategy from Team McCain regarding Sarah Palin will be to have her avoid media appearances and have her focus on campaign stops and stump speeches. However, if the clip that Carney produces below is all the evidence anyone has for this, then I’d suggest that Carney take another look at it again. That isn’t what Nicole Wallace said at all, and it frankly proves her point about the mainstream media and its animus towards Palin and John McCain
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September 5, 2008 - 10:34 AM on September 5th, 2008
Mean Meridith is as dumb as dirt. Meridith wants to be well known at all cost. She’s sold her very soul to NBC. What a Wicked Witch. I do know for a fact Vieira rides her broom to work everyday, that’s why her hair looks so messy and thin. Haven’t you noticed all the jealous women coming out of the closet, with an ugly snarl on their green with envy face after ‘Pretty Palin’ graced the screen. Well I never watch the Today Show any more, only tune in early before they come on for weather. All the morning shows are dull and boring, full of lies and deceit. Sarah puts it sweetly in her NEWS FLASH as to why she is going to Washington. Sarah isn’t interested in petty talk shows or silly getting no where negative news. The elite mafia media can only report gutter garbage or it isn’t any good,(they think)! Again they think wrong.
Well you have plenty to report of gutter garbage with Obama, so have at it. HA HA!
September 5, 2008 - 07:59 PM on September 5th, 2008
So, basically, in this situation, Sarah Palin is Dorothy Gale and Meredith Vieira is the Wicked Witch of the West?
Yeah, I could see that.