The Media Research Center's Brent Baker nailed CNN's Fareed Zakaria for his close consultations with Barack Obama in the White House. Although admittedly, Baker had help from another CNN-er, Eliot Spitzer, who teased it out of Zakaria. Fortunately, CNN has Howard Kurtz on its payroll to help do the spin/cover-up, under the guise of his TV show "Reliable Sources."
Here's Baker's report on the daisy chain of Barack, Fareed, Eliot and Howard:
Two days after liberal Democratic politician/CNN host Eliot Spitzer told fellow CNN host Fareed Zakaria it “brought a smile to my face” and “makes my heart warm” to learn President Obama “calls you for wisdom and advice about issues around the world,” Zakaria took to CNN’s site for his Sunday show, Fareed Zakaria GPS, to issue a “clarification on my conversations with the President” in which Zakaria, an in unusual late Saturday afternoon posting, declared: “The characterization that I have been ‘advising’ President Obama is inaccurate.”
Zakaria maintained that all he’s done is “had a couple of conversations with the President, off-the-record. At no point did President Obama ask me for advice on a specific policy.” Apparently, “conversations” that are “off-the-record” do not constitute “advising.”
The next day, on Sunday’s Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz accepted Zakaria’s explanation and only offered a gentle reprimand for not making the meetings known. Kurtz relayed how Zakaria claimed “that the two meetings he's had with Obama in recent months give him a sense of the President's thinking, and that he used to have the same kinds of meetings with, for example, Condi Rice.”
Kurtz decided: “I agree with Fareed's last point, that part of what he's getting at the White House is high-level spin. That's why I think the fact of the meetings should have been disclosed. Zakaria says that's not part of the arrangement, but it should be. Otherwise, people will inevitably have doubts when word leaks out.”
Doubts indeed when the host of a CNN show is discussing with the President the very policies that journalist later assesses on his foreign-policy oriented show.
