Leftist actor-director Robert Redford laid into Republicans in a Sunday interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Try not to notice this journalism show began with a Justin Bieber segment and included a Redford interview. Host Brian Stelter first asked how Redford felt about Obama. "I think he's a good human being. That's, I think, clear," Redford replied. "He's a humanitarian at heart, and that's good. He's trying to manage an extremely difficult situation. I mean, it's -- it's almost too much for one person."
He wouldn't say the same for the GOP: “When you have one half whose only motive is to destroy the motives of the president of the United States, then you have a diseased system. And I don't think that's his fault. I think it just makes his job tougher.” Redford lamely claimed there was bipartisanship in getting to “truth” in Watergate: [See video after jump.]
REDFORD: We spoke a while back on "All the President's Men Revisited." There's a moment in that film I'd like to point out that illustrates my point, which is remember the hearings, the Watergate hearings? And we have some archival footage in there where you had the panel, Sam Ervin, Sam Dash -- you had all these guys, and you have the senator from Tennessee [Howard Baker], and he was conservative. He was a Republican.
You had Republicans and Democrats on this panel. And what you got out of it was how hard all of them were working together to get to the truth of something. And I thought, I'm seeing something we don't see today, bipartisanship, working together to get to the truth for the public good.
Earth to Redford: In Watergate, can’t it look quite obviously like the Democrats and their media collaborators had the motive to “destroy the motives of the President of the United States”? The Republicans were cooperative in exposing what happened then. Do the Democrats look cooperative today on Obama scandals like the Benghazi fiasco or Fast & Furious? Are they interested in the “truth” when the Attorney General lies before Congress about his knowledge of Fast & Furious?
Redford wouldn’t say a discouraging word about Obama’s environmental record when Stelter tried to come at it from the Left, even though CNN boss Jeff Zucker bizarrely claims CNN isn't a liberal network, it's down the middle:
STELTER: Are there particular disappointments you feel in President Obama after the first year of his second term? I ask because we had that big letter come out from 18 environmental groups that were breaking from the president recently and saying they didn't support his current strategy toward environmental –
And I think some of the industries of old that made this country strong and great have now turned the other way; they don't serve us anymore because there's new technologies that are cleaner and, if they were used, would be a better country for our young people to step into. And yet you have the powers that be running the show. And then there you have it, same old same old. And to me, that's unhealthy.
But I think, for Obama, I think he can't do what he -- if he can't get bipartisanship to work with, then that's a tough one.
The interview ended on a truly ridiculous note. Stelter asked if the media has failed to “educate the public” on climate change. The chyron under Redford on screen said "Media should have told climate change stories earlier."
The CNN host is 28 years old. He might be unaware not only of the complete media panic on global cooling in the 1970s, where an effort to “educate the public” didn’t match what actually happened with the climate. He must be unaware of all the global-warming panic the media has manufactured since the drought of 1988 (when he was three). But there they were, two liberals complaining the liberal media hadn’t won over the public yet:
STELTER: I wonder what you think of the media's coverage of climate change. Do you feel it's the kind of topic where they've failed, in general, to educate the public?
REDFORD: I do. I think it's now finally dawning on people that we're -- it is an issue because it's now in our backyard. It's not something that's out there or tomorrow, it's here and it's now and it's happening. It's affecting water. Look at the weather patterns. [The polar vortex, the blizzards...] They're so drastic. It's pretty -- you have to be -- you have to be really the most narrow-minded person in the world to still deny climate change. But it's here and it's already showing evidence of destruction....
I think the media has fallen short, in large. And I think certain parts of the media have been good. But I think in total, the media has missed the bet by not getting on board earlier to tell the stories of the clear evidence already in place about the dangers we're now facing. I think they missed the bet on that. They're coming in late to the game.
A less dishonest, more factual critique could suggest that the Obama-loving media hasn't aggressively pushed "cures" for climate change during the Obama years. They barely noticed the House passing "cap and trade" legislation in 2009, which the Democratic Senate ignored. But it simply cannot be accurately argued that the media has failed to try and "educate the public" with hours of one-sided propagandistic "news" coverage on the allegedly dire state of global warming.
Earlier: Redford says on CNN Tea Party faction of GOP "wanted, if it meant destroying the government, anything to keep him [Obama] from succeeding."
