Monday, October 27, 2008

Biden to right wing Florida news anchor: Is this a joke?

Is this woman a new recruit for Fox News? Where did the news network find this woman?

Saturday, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) sat for an interview with Barbara West of WFTV Orlando. West loaded her interview questions with right-wing smears, likening progressive tax policies to Marxism. Biden responded to West’s ridiculous line of questioning with disbelief:

WEST: You may recognize this famous quote, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” That’s from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

BIDEN: Are you joking? Is this a joke? … Or is that a real question? (LAUGHTER).

“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,” Biden told West later in the interview. When West asked if Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) wanted to “turn America into a Socialist country like Sweden,” Biden said, “I don’t know anybody who thinks that except the far right-wing of the Republican Party.” Watch it (beginning at 2:15):

Members of the media criticized West’s unprofessional interview, calling it “embarrassing,” “hostile,” and “ham-handed.”
The Chicago Tribune's Frank James calls the interview "
a joke," "embarrassing," and "painful."

Update: Obama campaign responded by canceling a Jill Biden interview with the same network.

Anonymous Liberal adds:
The woman was like a cartoonish caricature of a wingnut, and her questions were straight out of a Steven Colbert interview. I kept waiting for her to ask Biden when Obama stopped being a member of al Qaeda.

Update 2. Surprise, surprise. Her husband is a GOP media consultant. Ya think she got the questions via her husband, or did Rick Davis skip the middleman?

2 comments:

airJackie said...

Total embarrassment to Journalist. After listening to the questions I also asked if this was Pumk program joke. No professional would do this.

Anonymous said...

Yes I saw the clip, the anchor was dead serious, and she is a victim of GOP bought/sold/brainwashed news, and Biden handled that very well.