ABC’s Jonathan Karl is only the latest Journalist to shill for Democrats

On September 11, 2012, the Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia mounted attacks in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.  That was shocking enough.  But when Congressional committees held hearings, CNN Worldwide President Zeff Zucker told the New York Times that CNN wouldn’t be shamed into covering them.

CNN and Zucker was acting to protect President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Fast forward to today, and ABC’s Jonathan Karl is taking heat for acting as a surrogate for Kamala Harris on ABC’s “This Week.”  This isn’t a first offense for either network, nor will it be the last.  Journalism, as we used to know it, barely exists.

AUDIO:  Random Samplings of a Logical Mind.

You may be thinking:  Wait a minute, Lynn!  You’re an open advocate for conservatives.

I am.  And the key word is “open.”  Years ago, I became bored with simply doing the news, and wanted to move into the talk arena so that I could analyze and comment logically on current events.  Even so, and I’m going to yell at you now:  I DO NOT SHILL FOR ANY POLITICIAN OR CANDIDATE.  IF THEY WANT THEIR ASSES KISSED, THEY CAN GO ON SOME OTHER SHOW.

I’m not sure I made that clear.  So let me say it again:  My job is to look at current events and politics through a logical lens.  Democrats are typically more insane than Republicans, but not always.  I am perfectly capable and willing to ask hard questions of anyone that comes on the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 in Austin.

I can’t force guests to come on the show, but if they do, I will ask the hardest questions I can think of and they will be fair.  I will not ask the sheriff if he beats his wife, but I will ask members of Congress from both parties why they don’t take the National Debt seriously.  And so forth.

Jonathan Karl gets paid by ABC and not by the Kamala Harris campaign.

The way he defended her on “This Week” was bizarre and creepy. Sen. Tom Cotton was laying out his objections  to Harris’s positions – which she has not repudiated – and Karl pushed back.  Harris has taken many far-left positions over her years of sucking off the public teat, and Cotton was making hay of them.

She’s variously been for defunding the police, abolishing fracking, eliminating private health insurance, and abortion on demand, now branded as “reproductive rights.”  To my knowledge, she’s backed away from some of that, but obviously to get elected.

Why was it Karl’s job to defend her by saying she no longer holds this or that position?  Much has been made of her campaign website for having no policy positions at all.  For that matter, Karl ought to  pepper her with questions (if he gets a chance) about the last four years – when she was the last person in the room while Biden was making was making terrible decisions.

I have no objection to Karl or any other journalist asking Trump hard questions.

Just like Harris, Trump threw his hat in the ring.  The heat inside that ring is often stifling and only the strongest survive.  That’s how we elect presidents.  We test them.  The policy positions that Tom Cotton offered up for debate were valid points, but Karl did not want to debate.  He simply stood up for Harris.

He could have said:  Well, Senator, she is walking back those positions, but I am aware that she has held them.  When she decides to do interviews, I will ask her why those positions have changed.   Another thing Karl could have done, as the show’s anchor, was to bring all this up during the panel discussion later in the show, and had his opinion guests weigh in.

I’ve said this many times, and I’ll say it again.  These Sunday morning shows are produced for the other networks to see, and the questions are formulated to appeal to other left-wing journalists.  And to hell with serving the public.

So!  How do the networks rank with this surrogate business?

FOX News and Newsmax are decidedly on the right.  Sean Hannity will defend Donald Trump all day long, but Hannity does not claim the high mantle of journalism – nor does Laura Ingraham or Jesse Watters.  Bret Baier is as good a journalist as TV has to offer.  And the actual news team such as reporters Kevin Cork and Peter Doocy, are down the line reporters.  Did I say Peter Doocy?  I did.  Doocy asks the hardest questions of all and that’s what makes him a great reporter.  His questions are fair.  He does not shill for Republicans. He holds the Biden administration accountable.

CNN, during the resign of Jeff Zucker, was a total loss.  It’s not much better today.  Jake Tapper is a former Democratic political activist and it shows.

When anchor Kaitlan Collins went on Stephen Colbert’s show, he mentioned that she works on a straight news network, and the audience roared with laughter.  On Real Time, Bill Maher goaded her about that.

I like Lester Holt on NBC.  I think he did a fine job confronting Harris on her lack of a border trip.  But MSNBC is such a joke of a network that I literally cannot watch it.  It’s there for the far left of the far left.  It has no journalistic value at all.  Turn it off and forget it exists.  And forget Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.  That’s just more of Jonathan Karl journalism.

CBS News, with no cable outlet, is a decent news operation, but I’m not a big fan of Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation.  These once-proud Sunday shows are in a steep decline.

Then, there’s ABC.

The so-called “face” of ABC News is George Stephanopoulos.  He’s a member of the old Clinton War Room and still appears to be a left-wing operative disguised as a journalist.

I’ll never forget the bizarre question about contraception that he asked to try to nail Mitt Romney during a debate.  To this day, I think he was trying to get Romney to say something for a forthcoming TV commercial.  ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir is a far better journalist.

Journalism – we hardly knew ye!

When I got into this business, I had news directors like Bill Watts at KNOW/Austin, Bob Scott at WFAA/Dallas and Jess Smith at KRLD/Dallas who held our feet to fire when it came to inserting opinions into the news.  In those days (the seventies), we didn’t have cable news or Rush Limbaugh.  We got the news out with accurate reporting and by interviewing politicians with differing opinions.  And we asked hard questions.

I love hard questions.  And I love honest answers.

The three fiction books by Lynn Woolley

Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter.  Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us.  Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley. 

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