To Bob Franken, Who Defends Stephanopoulos and Gibson

Bob, with all due respect, if you think that first hour of oppo-research questioning reflects the news of the day of real Americans in the real world, I would like to know how many real Americans you actually talk to who agree with you about this.

I am talking not about cable studios or lunch dates with George and Charlie, but Americans who have lost their jobs, or who are hungry, or who fear they may be foreclosed upon tomorrow, or the 300,000 veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq we learned yesterday will return home with major psychological disorders, or what we learned from the homeless veterans’ association this week about a problem we are not dealing with, which is getting worse.

Which of those people do you think agree with you that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the news of the day that matters to them? Which of these people have you talked to, Bob, who believe that what will Bill Ayers did 40 years ago will give jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, or hope to the downtrodden?

If you want to do some real journalism, Bob, why don’t you, or George, or Charlie ask Hillary the same flag question they asked Barack, or explain why they did not? Why don’t you, or they, report how the Ayers story was peddled by Clinton staff to right-wing media — to Sean Hannity, to George Stephanoplous, to 10 million people — in a warped and twisted debate that was not a debate in fact? Any did they not ask Hillary about Bill Clinton’s pardons of similar people, among others?

Even better, next time you have lunch with your friends George and Charlie, why don’t you ask them why they didn’t talk about those 300,000 post traumatic stress disorder victims, or the homeless veterans, or the $500 billion needs of troops and vets that are now unmet, or the food riots around the world and their impact on our security, or what they will do about torture, or whether they will be honest and say that to create real jobs we must go far beyond talk about trade, or why America is no longer in the top 29 nations of the world for infant mortality and life expectancy?

Stephanopoulos and Gibson were given a precious gift and serious responsibility with the opportunity to inform 10 million Americans about the future of our country, and they discredited themselves and their profession by turning the moment into slop, slime and everything Americans dislike about politics and media.