Christine O'Donnell Breitbarts CNN's Soledad O'Brien - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Christine O’Donnell Breitbarts CNN’s Soledad O’Brien
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CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien believes President Obama is a Communist.

At least, that’s the corner she backed herself into in a set-to with former GOP senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell. And O’Donnell performed a valuable public service this morning illustrating what’s really going on over at CNN. Now that the late Andrew Breitbart’s name has become a verb, concerning taking down the left-leaning media, you might say Christine O’Donnell Breitbarted Soledad O’Brien.

Take a good look at this CNN clip in which O’Donnell and CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien square off, the former with some assistance from Utah’s Congressman Jason Chafetz.

In the clip, Ms. O’Donnell says — correctly — that the 2012 campaign is essentially about “capitalism versus collectivism.” She accurately cites President’s Obama’s well-stated beliefs in redistributing wealth (here’s an example) and economic equality as well as nationalizing private business. Although O’Donnell didn’t cite it, the Obama’s administration’s government takeover of General Motors is exactly an example of “nationalizing.”

O’Brien immediately gets worked up and says that when O’Donnell uses the word “collectivism” O’Donnell is accusing President Obama of being “a communist.”

Actually, that isn’t what O’Donnell said. At no time did she accuse the President of being a communist. Period. Yet O’Brien kept trying to get O’Donnell to say it. So O’Donnell said this:

“President Obama himself has said that he wants to nationalize more of the private sector, and that’s not what America is all about.”

O’Brien bridles. She becomes visibly agitated. A debate is suddenly on and the two spar on nationalizing, with O’Brien indignant the President would be accused of nationalizing. Citing the fact that her mother is from Cuba, O’Brien says she knows something about the subject.

O’Brien: “So when you talk about ‘nationalizing’ something and you’re really taking sort of the words that they use in Cuba, frankly. And Communism. Really.”

Stop right here.

Now why in the world would Soledad O’Brien get so visibly agitated at O’Donnell’s insistence that Mr. Obama is in favor of nationalizing?

Ms. O’Brien is a smart woman. Surely she knows as a CNN anchor that O’Donnell was correct that the president is a fan of nationalizing. And O’Donnell certainly isn’t alone in saying so.

For example, here’s the Washington Post in June of 2009 (bold emphasis mine):

President Obama laid out his case yesterday for committing billions of dollars more to the rescue of General Motors, arguing that the nationalization of the industrial giant was necessary to bolster the foundering U.S. economy.

… The government has needed to take ownership stakes in private enterprises during the economic crisis, Obama said yesterday, “for the simple and compelling reason that their survival and the success of our overall economy depend on it.”

But hey, Soledad, if President Obama himself and the Washington Post aren’t enough of an authority to back up Christine, here’s perhaps an even better authority on the subject of Mr. Obama’s record on nationalizing.

That would be no less than Fidel Castro’s old chum, Venezuelan’s leftist leader Hugo Chavez. As seen here, when Chavez noted the President’s GM takeover and referred to him as “Comrade Obama” for nationalizing GM — saying that if he, Chavez, and Cuba’s Communist dictator Castro didn’t watch out they would be to the right of Obama.

Interesting, no?

Humorously, Hugo Chavez, President Obama, and the Washington Post all are on exactly the same page as Christine O’Donnell. They all agree: Obama loves nationalizing. The only difference being O’Donnell is appalled at nationalizing.

When O’Brien insists that saying Obama believes in nationalizing is to accuse him of being a communist, O’Donnell immediately closes the trap O’Brien got herself into, and correctly says: 

“You’re saying that the words that they use in Cuba are coming from President Obama.”

To which an alarmed O’Brien, perhaps realizing what’s she done, vehemently replies:

“Oh certainly not! You’re saying that!”

Fascinating.

What Christine O’Donnell has accomplished here  is to out O’Brien as yet another standard leftist who masquerades as an objective journalist, this time at CNN.

We’ve written two items this week, here and here, about the role NewsBusters is playing in exposing the leftward bias of the mainstream media.

Noting specifically the first appearance of this bias in the very first modern presidential campaign of 1960. It was in that Kennedy-Nixon campaign that Pulitzer Prize winning author Theodore H. White specifically noted the blatant behind-the-scenes tilt of the national media (or “the press” as it was generally called in 1960). Wrote White of this bias, the journalists of the day pretended to objectivity but really were “marching like soldiers of the Lord to the New Frontier” — which is to say, marching for JFK and the liberal cause of the day.

In the clip with Soledad O’Brien and Christine O’Donnell, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien is shown by O’Donnell to be one of today’s leftist flag carriers ill-concealed as an “objective journalist.”

I spoke with Christine O’Donnell today. She was amused, and should be.

O’Donnell had caught a CNN anchor not just defending President Obama. She caught Soledad O’Brien unwittingly making a direct connection between communism and President Obama. Specifically a connection between Fidel Castro and Mr. Obama. 

And who better to vouch for Ms. O’Donnell’s point than… Fidel’s buddy Hugo Chavez, the Washington Post — and President Obama himself?

Not to put too fine a point on it… but there is a reason Soledad O’Brien gets so jumpy when critics accuse the President of being a left-wing extremist.

Because they’re right.

Jeffrey Lord
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Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
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