January 25, 2015

I'm just starting to feel better after suffering from a bad case of food poisoning so I was able to watch ABC/This Week's interview of Bobby Jindal because I wanted to see how he would handle himself after being exposed as a lying xenophobe on foreign soil. I immediatley regretted my decision because of the inane interview George Stephanopoulos conducted with the Louisiana governor.

One of the the most controversial topics coming out after the Paris attacks was Fox News' repeated claims that there were many cities in France and Britain taken over by radical Islam that were turned into Muslim "no-go zones." Those claims were immediately discredited and Fox News was forced to apologize several times over. The Mayor of Paris has said she wants to sue Fox News on top of it. During this whole fiasco, Bobby Jindal gave a speech in London and parroted the same Muslim "no-go zones' lies specifically to fan the flames of fear and hatred and throw his support around a xenophobic vision of the world. When Jindal was questioned by the media to point our where these no-go zones where, he couldn't respond and he was trashed for his lies by the press. That didn't stop him from continuing to dig a deep hole for himself. That sets the stage for today's ABC interview. And then it began and then it crumbled.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm sure we will. You missed that big event, though, in Iowa yesterday. As Jon Karl said, it was a pretty packed stage.

And I want to ask you about that. You know, you have these other social conservatives like you -- Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, they were all there yesterday. Other governors like Scott Walker and Chris Christie, how can you possibly stand out in a field like that, such a packed field?

JINDAL: Well, George, if I do decide to run, and something I'm seriously looking at, I'm praying and thinking about it, but if I do decide to run I think this country, I think our nation, needs leaders who have the courage to speak the truth to us. And unfortunately we don't have that right now.

I'll give you an example, earlier this week I gave a speech in London where I talked about the threats of radical Islamic terrorism. I know it made a lot of people upset, but we need leaders to tell us the truth.

For example, people coming to our country need to integrate, need to assimilate. So I think people are looking for leaders that are willing to take on the big challenges. One of the biggest challenges facing us, I think, is the current administration's attempt to redefine the American dream. My parents came to this country over 40 years ago in search of freedom and opportunity. The American dream is not about redistribution or government spending or debt, it's about freedom and opportunity. I think the voters want us to restore the American dream for our children and grandchildren.

This should have caused George's glands to salivate in anticipation of what he could do to challenge Jindal. Something so simple as to just ask him how he could talk about the courage to speak the truth when he intentionally lied about those discredited "no-go" zones for which David Cameron refuted himself?

People were upset, not because he talked about the right wing's favorite topic of late, radical Islam, but because he L-I-E-D to make his case. Forcing Bobby Jindal to defend his xenophobic view that immigrants must immediatley assimilate and conform like Stepford wives was another avenue he could have chosen to walk down, but instead of actually interviewing Bobby, this is what we got.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made some headlines a couple of years back calling the GOP the stupid party. Is it still the stupid party?

Huh? How could Stephanopoulos be so unprepared or uninterested with current events surrounding Gov. Jindal outside of his speech at a religious rally that he pulled out his old leathery playbook of questions from years ago? WTF was he thinking?

This is the state of the media these days and George Stephanopoulos wins C&L's award for the Worst Interviewer Of The Day.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon