MSNBC's Martin Bashir has only been on the job for a few days, but the
newly-minted anchor is already letting his liberal flag fly.
On his eponymous program today, Bashir was dumbfounded as to why
Congress is reluctant to hike taxes on the rich and end tax deductions
for oil companies.
"Why won't Congress simply do what the people want?" lamented Bashir,
interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the independent socialist
lawmaker who caucuses with Democrats.
Bashir cherry-picked the findings of one poll to imply that Sanders's
left-wing economic views - which include a single-payer health care
system - enjoy national support, yet the former ABC anchor failed to
identify the self-described socialist senator's political leanings.
While it is true the NBC-Wall Street Journal
poll
found that a vast majority of Americans support ending tax deductions
for oil companies and still more support a surtax on people earning more
than $1 million per year, the poll found popular support for several
other issues that Bashir neglected to mention: 56 percent of Americans
believe the Social Security retirement age should be raised, 62 percent
support means-testing for Medicare, and 51 percent support nixing
funding for the Obama health care overhaul, just to name a few.
In case his adulation for Sanders was in doubt, a bubbly Bashir
concluded the interview on a sycophantic note: "Senator Bernie Sanders,
as ever provocative and insightful, thank you very much for joining us."
Given that the majority of Americans don't even support the Obama
health care overhaul, let alone a national single-payer system, Bashir's
choice of Sanders as the bellwether of popular sentiment is bizarre at
best and irresponsible at worst.
For an archive of Bashir's bias - including his smears of Sheriff Joe
Arpaio and biased treatment of a small Catholic town in Florida - click
here.
A transcript of the relevant portions of the segment can be found below:
3:32 p.m. EST
MARTIN BASHIR: What you just said almost mirrors our new NBC-Wall
Street Journal poll. When asked about the best way to reduce the
deficit, a full 80 percent of Americans favor a surtax on those earning
more than $1 million. 78 percent said eliminate earmarks. 76 percent
want to eliminate defense projects the Pentagon says it doesn't need,
sorry the Pentagon says it doesn't need. And 74 percent said it's time
to end subsidies for oil and gas companies. Why won't Congress simply do
what the people want?
Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) : Well what can I tell you? This senator
believes absolutely - and I saw that poll - the most significant point
you made, the highest percentage is people saying "look, the rich are
getting richer." Why are you going to cut programs that the middle class
and working families need. Ask these families to start paying their
fair share. The effective tax rate today of the wealthiest people in
this country is lower than it's ever been in recorded history in our
country. So that's the obvious solution. So you ask me why? Well you
know the answer to that. Who do you think controls the Republican Party?
Big money controls the Republican Party. This is where their campaign
contributions come from. So if I have anything to say about it, I'm
going to do everything I can to see the Democratic caucus come forward
and say "yeah, we do need to make some cuts." I think there are programs
that could be cut, but bottom line is not to ask the wealthiest people
in the country to pay their fair share after they received huge amounts
of tax breaks is insane. What the Republicans are saying is way outside
of what the average American believes.
- Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
