Chris Wallace: Republican Partisan
Or:
More Faux News Follies

We only get basic cable, so on Sunday morning when I'm really jonesin' for the talk shows, I have to start out with Fox "News" Sunday because nothing else is on yet. Whew, man. I didn't have easy access to tv last semester, and I'd just plain forgotten how blatantly biased Fox "New" is.

Dunno whether anyone else had the displeasure of seeing the spectacle, but Chris Wallace first interviewed Richard Meyers. He lobbed him nothing but softballs, always in an extremely deferential tone, always waiting patiently while Meyers answered, giving him as much time as he wanted to answer each question. "Wow," I thought, "what a wienerly interview."

But then I thought about Meyers's stature and impending retirement, and thought that one might justifiably go easy on him.

Then Chris Dodd came on the show to talk about the Bolton nomination, and Walllace's demeanor changed completely. He was aggressive almost to the point of being disrespectful, interrupting Dodd several times, talking over him at other times, always rushing him, repeating the same questions over and over in different forms even though Dodd had already given excellent answers several times. Even in response to eminently reasonable answers, Wallace would react in a way that conveyed a kind of subtle incredulity. It was a disgusting display of naked bias.

It may also be worth nothing that later on This Week, Stephanopoulos was interviewing Sam Brownback (who opposes new fetal stem cell lines) and Specter (who supports them), and after Brownback's first response, Stephanopoulos responded rather too quickly and sharply with another question, seemingly indicating his disagreement. But after that, he got himself under control.

The impression I came away with was that Stephanopoulos was trying to be objective and doing a passably good--but by no means perfect--job of it, whereas Wallace wasn't even pretending to be neutral.