RNC Blasts Media’s ‘Liberal Bias’ in Rudy Giuliani Controversy

Private remarks the former New York City Mayor made that President Obama “doesn’t love America” dominated cable news last week

Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani

RNC communications director Sean Spicer issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing the media for what he perceived as unbalanced coverage of controversial remarks former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made last week.

Politico released statements Giuliani made at a private Manhattan dinner last week, where he questioned the President’s love for America.

“I know this is a horrible thing to say,” Giuliani started, before saying, “But I do not believe that the president loves America…He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Cable news jumped on the comments, and Giuliani backtracked in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

“My blunt language suggesting that the President doesn’t love America notwithstanding, I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart,” Giuliani wrote.

Days after Giuliani’s comments sparked a firestorm, the RNC is now citing the media onslaught on Giuliani as a classic example of liberal media selectively targeting Republicans while ignoring controversies that feature Democrats at their center.

Spicer’s full statement below.

A review of news coverage from the last week using the TVEyes media monitoring database reveals that the controversies surrounding the Clinton Foundation’s foreign donations, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s plot to paint President Obama as anti-Semitic and anti-woman, and Vice President Biden’s Somali cab driver gaffe have generated just over 1,300 TV and radio hits combined.

Remarks made by Rudy Giuliani tallied over 8,600 hits Monday afternoon, and that number is still growing.

Coverage has been fueled by reporters grasping for new angles or asking any Republican in range of a microphone to respond to his comments and other unrelated questions.

Yet while the media forced potential Republican presidential candidates to weigh in on that story, they did not do the same for potential Democrat candidates when it came to any of their party’s controversies of the week.

These aren’t throw away Democrat scandals either. Politico reported that the head of the DNC, the leader of the Democrat Party’s campaign apparatus, lined up her allies to accuse President Obama of being anti-Semitic, and anti-woman if he decided to replace her.

Not a single Democrat candidate has been asked, “Do you think it’s anti-Semitic to remove Wasserman Schultz as chair of the DNC?”

Hillary Clinton was not asked, “Do you think it’s anti-woman to remove Wasserman Schultz as chair of the DNC?”

Likewise, when it was revealed that Wasserman Schultz tried to sell her support for marijuana legalization in order to silence critics, prominent Democrats weren’t bombarded with questions. And remember: this is the chair of the party and a sitting Congresswoman.

Joe Biden was not questioned about the appropriateness of the actions of his party’s chairwoman.

Clearly, there is a double standard.

And, of course, nowhere in the frenzy of the past few days has there any mention of the first person to question President Obama’s roots or patriotism: Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee-in-waiting. In the 2008 primary campaign, she wouldn’t take a stand on the president’s religion. Her campaign sought to highlight his “lack of American roots” (their phrase).

This is all just par for the course. A Republican former office holder says something, and they think every Republican must answer for it. A current Democrat party leader does and says something, and it’s no one else’s problem.

Likewise, if a conservative commentator says something controversial, the media say it’s a reflection of the Republican Party. When Al Sharpton or Chris Matthews says something offensive or jaw-dropping, they draw no link to the Democrat Party.

Yet another example: Columba Bush was dragged into the media spotlight this week with a hit piece from the Washington Post, which consisted of old news from years past. Yet there was hardly a single headline over Bill Clinton’s travels with Jeffrey Epstein, something we learned about only recently. Where are the articles on Clinton’s spending habits?

There’s a pattern here, and it’s time to treat the parties equally. I look forward to Hillary Clinton and other potential 2016 Democrat contenders to have to answer for the actions of their fellow Democrats. (Then of course, Hillary hasn’t held a press conference or done an interview in over 200 days, and her “spokesman” responds to every question with the same answer: “No comment.”)

Comments