MATT LAUER [incredulous tone]: You said he was threatening you. Are you serious about that?
RICK SANTELLI: Listen, let’s put it this way. You’re married, are you not?
LAUER: I am.
SANTELLI: OK, this is more about the feelings my wife had when she watched it, the body language, and listened to what he was saying.
The debate raged on, with Lauer at one point ardently asserting that there had been no threat.
LAUER: I’m sure your wife is a lovely person, however what Robert Gibbs said was basically, and I’m paraphrasing here, he was saying he’s not sure as a former trader and current television personality you’re living in the same kind of neighborhoods where people are struggling to pay their mortgages. He wasn’t threatening you!
I tend to agree with Lauer’s bottom line. It’s not as if Gibbs were waving around a photo of Santelli’s family and saying “nice kids. Wouldn’t want nuthin to happen to them.” Hot Air has been very critical of Santelli for resorting to the same tactics of victimization typical of the left. Then again, I do think Gibbs intended, let’s say, a chilling effect. Criticize the president, and expect to be ridiculed on national TV. Of course Gibbs’ criticism of Santelli has boomeranged, making him something of a national hero to many, and presumably making it almost impossible for CNBC to fire him any time soon.
It’s Lauer’s role to ask tough questions of Santelli. But when Matt passionately expresses a point of view, as he did today, he ceases being a journalist and sounds more like a pundit—or surrogate White House spokesman.
3 Comments
I watched this back and forth this morning…of course Lauer was acting as a pundit…for the O-Team…as usual.
In my eyes, what he is doing is the same thing they have done in the past and still are to others like Joe the Plumber, trying to destroy and intimidate Santelli…reign him in, have him toe the line or else…
In my eyes what I see happening, what I have heard via radio even during the primaries, this intimidation tactic isn’t going to quit anytime soon from the O team.
As the morning show folks go, I consider Lauer among the fairer, and was unpleasantly surprised to see him engage in this bit of sheer pro-Obama advocacy.
It must be a metro sexual thing, Mark…tehe