Hillary-Backer Carville Set To Appear On Sunday's Meet The Press -- Without Any Obama Or Edwards Backers
November 20, 2007 -- 3:10 PM EST // //
One of the stranger media phenomenons of Campaign 2008 has been the odd race to the bottom we've been seeing between Tim Russert and CNN. First Russert asked his typical "gotcha" questions at his debate. Then CNN's Wolf Blitzer praised Russert's performance as "tough." Then Wolf proceeded to deliver an equally unproductive performance as the moderator of CNN's debate.
Now there's more of this. As you recall, CNN put Hillary supporter James Carville on its debate roundup -- prompting critics to point out that the network failed to identify her sufficiently as a Hillary supporter and that the network has been giving a platform to Hillary-backing "independent" analysts for way too long.
Well, guess who is now set to appear on Meet the Press this coming weekend? Hillary supporter James Carville, of course.
The network has just confirmed to me that Carville is one of the guests set to appear this Sunday. The other guests, as of now, are Bob Shrum, Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy -- which is to say, no backer of any of the other Dem candidates.
What gives here? Aren't there any other Dems out there -- you know, neutral ones -- who are qualified to comment on this race? Given the criticism that hit CNN over this -- criticism that came from rival Dem campaigns as well as from other observers -- did Meet the Press really have to follow suit? And if the network really can't imagine a discussion of presidential politics without Carville, what about backers of the other Dems? This just gets weirder and weirder.
From what I've seen Meet the Press tends to do a quick identifier of its guests' affiliations towards the start of the show. Anyone tuning in sometime during the show might not learn of Carville's Hillary sympathies.
I've checked in with an NBC spokesperson and asked whether Carville will be clearly and repeatedly identified as a Hillary partisan, whether other Dem candidates will be represented, and if not, what the reason for this is. If I hear anything back I'll let you know.
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