NBC's political hypocrisy was on full display in Wednesday's Today, as Savannah Guthrie treated former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to a gushy interview about his $50 million push to promote gun control and fight the National Rifle Association.
Guthrie, mentioning the NRA has been successful at "frightening lawmakers," asked such hardball questions as:
Mr. Mayor, I’ll start with a simple question. You had a tragedy like Newtown everybody was horrified by. You had a major presidential push, it went nowhere. Why will you succeed where no one else has been able to?
But you know this is a political heavy lift. You’re putting $50 million into the effort.
Mr. Mayor, you’ve been pretty blunt about this, saying essentially this new group is going to borrow a page from the NRA’s playbook. The NRA has been very successful in frightening lawmakers who oppose them, saying, "We’ll punish you at the ballot box." You’re quoted in The New York Times this morning saying, "We have to make them afraid of us."
To go back to the $50 million. It’s not a small number. It’s not pocket change, even for you. Is it a matter simply of outspending the NRA? Which by the way, this sum would.
This all begs the question, we know you’re not afraid to get into the political fray. We know you’re not afraid to put a little money behind the effort. People do wonder perennially, about every four years actually, whether you would consider a run for president.
Do you miss being mayor?
There were no questions about the influx of money into politics, which NBC seemed horribly bothered by two weeks ago. Hot Air's Ed Morrissey pondered whether the Koch brothers would be treated so kindly had they been invited on-air to discuss their new agenda. After all, Newsbusters noted that it was only on April 3 that the network "was wringing its hands over a Supreme Court ruling loosening campaign finance restrictions."
"And you thought there was already too much money in politics," said White House correspondent Peter Alexander on Today. "Fasten your seat belts. From now on, there's gonna be a whole lot more."