Chris Wallace Steps In It. Again.
Jun 27th, 2011 | 5 responses
Burning up the internets this morning, Chris Wallace asking Michele Bachmann, “Are you a flake?”
Bachmann calls the question “insulting,” she’s “a serious person.” Wallace apologized but Bachmann’s apparently not accepting.
This following on the heels of the week-long aftermath of Wallace’s Jon Stewart interview. In that interview Stewart said that Wallace stands out among Fox News journalists for his seriousness. I think not. While he may not reflect the full overt balanced-bias of some of the others, the Bachmann interview shows he has many of the same faults Stewart criticized as “sensationalist and somewhat lazy.”
Conor Friedersdorf on how Wallace bungled the Bachmann interview:
For starters, he could’ve refined his terminology. Making “questionable statements” is unnecessarily vague. The problem with some of Bachmann’s statements is that they are factually inaccurate, intemperate, or both. And a flake is someone who commits to something but doesn’t follow through. That isn’t the knock against Bachmann. Her critics think that she’s a right-wing nut job. Or else that she plays one on television to pander to the Tea Party base. Then there’s the first example Wallace chose. Bachmann’s remark about civilian casualties in Libya is the sort of forgivable misstatement people make all the time during off-the-cuff interviews.
And he knows it.
His other example — the time Bachmann suggested that the media should launch an investigation into anti-Americans in Congress — does exemplify some of Bachmann’s flaws. Alas, she isn’t forced to explain herself, because Wallace, having ended the question with “are you a flake,” thinks it’s a “strong answer” when Bachmann replies that she is an accomplished attorney. An appropriate followup would’ve been, “So why did you imply that your colleagues are anti-American?”
Meanwhile, James Fallows’ takes away from Bachmann’s Face The Nation appearance two signs that she’s serious: She looks much better than she used to and she is an absolute genius at the established political technique of giving the answer you want to give, no matter what the question was:
When I say these are signs that she is serious, I don’t mean that by my lights she suddenly has practical, plausible answers to the nation’s problems. It means that her run could be more disciplined and professional than some other ill-starred long-shot campaigns we’ve seen recently.
Demonstrating a different side of Fallows’ second point, Outside the Beltway’s Doug Mataconis notices that if you listened to Bachmann in that interview, you’d think that she believed that same-sex marriage is an issue that should be left to the states:
BACHMANN: In New York state, they have passed the law at the state legislative level and, under the 10th amendment, the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set.
WALLACE: So even though you oppose it, then its ok from — your point of view — for New York to say that same-sex marriage is legal.
BACHMANN: That is up to the people of New York. I think that it’s best to allow the people to decide on this issue. I think it’s best if there is an amendment that goes on the ballot, where people can weigh in. [...]
WALLACE: But you would agree, if its passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor then that’s the state’s position.
BACHMANN: It’s state law. And the 10th amendmet reserves to the states that right.
Minutes later she told the truth.
5 Responses to “Chris Wallace Steps In It. Again.”
I watched Bachmann on Face the Nation yesterday and came away with the impression she can never be a serious candidate, although I may be using the term differently than Mr. Fallows. Just spouting talking points and ignoring questions will not gain votes from anyone not already firmly in her corner. Yes all candidates do that to some extent but with Bachmann it is all she does.
The media seems stuck on the story that Bachmann has somehow remade herself and has become a viable candidate. Her schtick may work in a few primaries but she would be a disaster in a national election.
I am no fan of Bachmann but I do think she made a good point on the flake issue.
I disagree with her on many issues, but she does have advanced degrees, she has raised a family and over 20 foster kids.
She’s not my candidate and she certainly says some dumb things. But she’s no idiot.
She definitely is serious, in the way DaGoat has identified — as a politician; that has been true since the early GOP debate a week or two ago. (I don’t remember exactly when, as I didn’t consider something that early in the campaign season to be important — the big news was that expected-to-fail-Bachmann did very, very well.)
Now, she did say something, as Joe W. noted, that will set the far Left on edge. (Never mind the hypocrisy from the far Left that has been at the forefront of wanting a totalitarian federal government.) She is flashing the “vigorous social conservative” warning to all with any radical Left underpinnings, who never want to be told No, who will be very upset with that (which is much greater a part and phenomenon in politics than the much smaller and more intelligent philosophical opposition to government excess, especially federal excess, in any realm, not just in personal behavior).
At least it’s being done the legitimate way, unlike the Left’s standard behavior for decades, but that’s not to say a “marriage amendment” is addressing something that ought to be federal (the real test that should be applied and which must be passed).
She could still be the VP choice, perhaps, at the risk of being seen as repeating the McCain 2008 campaign.
I believe that unless a scandal happens or the economy really gets worse or he moves to farther left, Obama should probably win re-election. If he does such things and reduces his standing in the public, he faces just as much an attack from the far Left (who has never been satisfied since late 2009-early 2010) as from a mainstream candidate, including Hillary Clinton, still.
Wallace’s behavior was inexcusable.
I happen to believe Bachmann is a flake. The question as posed, however, was inappropriate.