WhatFinger


Sunday's Face the Nation inquisition of the Republican presidential Herman Cain

Schieffer’s anti-tobacco tirade against Herman Cain betrays his not-so-hidden liberal bias



WASHINGTON, D.C.--Bob Schieffer, the aging Texan who hosts the CBS's Sunday talk show "Face the Nation," like to think of himself as the network's gris eminence--a worthy successor to long line that goes back to Edward R. Murrow and Bob Pierpont.
As such he tries to project something rare to network news these days--an aura of studied objectivity. After last Sunday's inquisition of the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain he needs to take a refresher course. For the first few minutes of Face the Nation, Schieffer quizzed Cain politely about his amazing leap to the top in GOP presidential polls and received good-natured responses from the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Then Schieffer lost all pretense of impartiality. The 75-year-old graduate of Texas Christian University turned to Cain's controversial internet ad featuring his campaign manager, Mark Block.

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"Just listen to this," Schieffer told Cain as Block's image appeared on the screen saying: "We've run a campaign like nobody has ever seen. But then America has never seen a candidate like Herman Cain. We need you to get involved because together we can do this. We can take this country back." At which point, a stammering Schieffer broke in to ask Cain: "Mister Cain, I ...I just have to ask you. What is the point of that, having a man smoke a cigarette in a television commercial for you? At this point, let's pick up the CBS transcript as Cain answers: HERMAN CAIN: One of the themes within this campaign is let Herman be Herman. Mark Block is a smoker, and we say let Mark be Mark. That's all we're trying to say because we believe let people be people. He doesn't deny that he's a smoker. This isn't trying to-- BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you a smoker? HERMAN CAIN: No, I'm not a smoker. But I don't have a problem if that's his choice. So let Herman be Herman. Let Mark be Mark. Let people be people. This wasn't intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever. BOB SCHIEFFER: But it does. It sends a signal that it's cool to smoke. HERMAN CAIN: No, it does not. Mark Block smokes. That's all that ad says. We weren't trying to say it's cool to smoke. You have a lot of people in this country that smoke but what I respect about Mark as a smoker, who is my chief of staff, he never smokes around me or smokes around anyone else. He goes outside. If Schieffer having made his point had moved to a different line of question, he would have raised few eyebrows. But he didn't, instead interjecting what is a major no-no someone who fancies himself one the few remaining objective journalists on major TV. BOB SCHIEFFER: But he smokes on television. HERMAN CAIN: Well, he smokes on television. But that was no other subliminal message. BOB SCHIEFFER: Was it meant to be funny? HERMAN CAIN: It was meant to be informative, if they listen to the message where he said, "America has never seen a candidate like Herman Cain." That was the main point of it. And the-- the bit on the end, we didn't know whether it was going to be funny to some people or whether they were going to ignore it-- BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, let me just tell you, it's not funny to me. HERMAN CAIN: Okay. BOB SCHIEFFER: I am a cancer survivor-- HERMAN CAIN: Right. BOB SCHIEFFER:--like you. HERMAN CAIN: I am also. BOB SCHIEFFER: I had cancer that's smoking related. HERMAN CAIN: Yes. BOB SCHIEFFER: I don't think it serves the country well. And this is an editorial opinion here, to be showing someone smoking a cigarette. And … and you are the front-runner now. And it seems to me as front-runner, you would have a responsibility, not to take that kind of a tone in this. I would suggest that perhaps, as the front-runner, you'd want to raise the level of the campaign. HERMAN CAIN: We will do that, Bob. And I do respect your objection to the ad. And probably about thirty percent of the feedback was very similar to yours. It was not intended to offend anyone. And being a cancer-- being a cancer survivor myself, I am sensitive to that sort of thing. BOB SCHIEFFER: Would you take the ad down?... HERMAN CAIN: It's impossible to do now. Once you put it on the internet, it goes viral. We could take it off of our website but there are other sites that have already picked it up. It's nearly impossible to-- to erase that ad from the internet. BOB SCHIEFFER: Have-- have you ever thought of just saying to young people, don't smoke? Four hundred thousand people in America die every year-- from smoking related. HERMAN CAIN: I will have no problem saying that. And matter of fact-- BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, say it right now. HERMAN CAIN: Young people of America, all people, do not smoke. It is hazardous and it's dangerous to your health. Don't smoke. I've-- I've never smoked and I have encouraged people not to smoke. So, I don't-- BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): And it's not a cool thing to do. HERMAN CAIN: It is not a cool thing to do. And that's--that's not what I was trying to say. Smoking is not a cool thing to do. Schieffer, like most journalists of his time, was a heavy smoker. Whatever excuses he may want to make about the peer pressure of 1950s through 1980s, he made a conscientious decision to smoke and--like millions of others--eventually made a pragmatic decision not to smoke. But to blow his journalistic cool on national television by brow-beating a self-made black Republican about the fact that his campaign manager smokes is the height of hypocrisy. It defies imagination to think President Obama or any other well-known Democratic pol who occasionally smokes would have received similar treatment. If Cain hadn't been caught unaware by Schieffer's jarring unprofessionalism, he could have served Schieffer a few "gotcha" questions of his own. To wit: "Bob, you're not going to sit here and tell me that none of your associates on the production staff here at CBS smoke, are you? Or that your network doesn't air numerous shows every week that show people smoking? And how about the billions of dollars CBS took from the tobacco industry over the decades--even running ads showing a chorus line of cigarette packs dancing in prime time with millions of children watching? At that point, no doubt Schieffer would have been fuming and apoplectic--his producers frantically signaling him to close out the interview. One of the things that marks the liberal media establish as foppishly foolish is their contempt for the judgment of the American people--most of them acutely aware of "who's zooming whom" as the old saying goes. Schieffer and the others of his ilk ought to check their declining ratings and turn over a new tobacco leaf. Nathaniel Scaramouche is a longtime Washington insider who occasionally likes to lob a dead cat or two into the drawing rooms of the city's political parasites.


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Guest Column Nathaniel Scaramouche -- Bio and Archives

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