Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Friday offered White
House spin for the passage of financial reform, enthusing, "...
You've
got the well looking like it's capped. Passage of financial reform. Big
day for the White House." Over two segments, he touted Obama's
take: "But, the President called it a big win for the whole country."
Talking to Jake Tapper, the former Democratic operative fretted,
"This is another big pillar of his legislative agenda, the stimulus,
following health care. Yet, his poll numbers continue to slide. How does
the White House plan to address that?"
At Stephanopoulos' prompting, Tapper also repeated the Obama
perspective: "[The administration will] say this is what the President
wants to do. The policies of the past are what the Republicans want to
do."
In a follow-up segment, the GMA co-host interviewed Republican
Senator Richard Shelby. This gave Stephanopoulos another opportunity to
highlight yet more White House talking points on the Senate's passage of
legislation regulating Wall Street.
He chided, "Obama said yesterday, unless your business depends on
cutting corners or bilking customers, you have nothing to fear.
Specifically, how will this hurt businesses who are playing by the
rules?"
Speaking of the mostly party line vote, Stephanopoulos challenged,
"And then, at the end, only three Republicans voted for this. USA Today
this morning called this an example of mindless, senseless
partisanship."
Yet, at no time in either segment did the journalist parrot
Republican talking points on the legislation.
A transcript of the Richard Shelby interview, which aired in the 7am
hour on July 16, follows:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We turn now for more on this
financial reform legislation to Senator Richard Shelby. He's coming to
us from London this morning. So, he missed the earthquake. But, Senator,
yesterday, you said that this bill is a 2300 page legislative monster.
Does that mean that you, like the House Republican leader, John Boehner,
want to repeal it?
SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY: We would like to repeal it. But, I think what
we have to do now is change the political landscape. And that will
probably begin in November, George. We have to wait and see. But, this
is not a big victory for the American people.
This bill is not real reform, because we ignored the reform of Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac. We did not do very much, if anything, to speak of,
dealing with the rating agencies.
We have empowered a lot of the regulatory bodies that failed us
before and the question is, what have they learned? And it's not going
to create jobs, which we desperately need. It's going to cost jobs. It's
going to hurt the economy, not help.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, you say it's going to hurt the economy.
President Obama said yesterday, unless your business depends on cutting
corners or bilking customers, you have nothing to fear. Specifically,
how will this hurt businesses who are playing by the rules?
SHELBY: First of all, you're going to create, George, one of the
largest bureaucracies, the consumer agencies, that Washington's had in
many, many years. And it's going to delve into just about every aspect
of every small, medium business, financial institutions, anybody that
extends credit, so to speak, in this country.
We don't need this. What we need to do is create jobs. We're all
consumers and we like to, to make sure that the consumer has some
protection. But, we basically protect ourselves. But, I'll tell you,
this is not a jobs bill. It's not good for the economy. It's not real
reform, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, what happened here? A couple months
ago, you were saying, you and Senator Dodd, the Democratic Chairman of
this committee who wrote the bill, were conceptually very close.
And then, at the end, only three Republicans voted for this. USA
Today this morning called this an example of mindless, senseless
partisanship.
SHELBY: I think it became very partisan. Senator Dodd and I worked
for a year and a half, looking conceptually towards a bipartisan bill
where we would hopefully pick up 80, 85 senators, which was a great
bipartisan show. But, at the end of the day, every time we got close to
crystalizing some of our concepts, I believe that the administration got
involved and the Treasury got involved and said no. So we wound up with
a partisan bill, a bill that I do not believe is real reform and it's
not going to be good for the economy.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator- Senator, we only have a few seconds left.
What is the single most important thing voters will get from Republicans
if you take back control of Congress, come November?
SHELBY: I think you're going to see a positive sign of how we can
create jobs by less regulation, better tax policies targeted towards
small and medium size business that would create the jobs and get
America rolling again.
-Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.
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