George Stephanopoulos makes the case why he should be fired from his ABC News job
George Stephanopoulos got aggressive yesterday in challenging author Peter Schweizer on his book Clinton Cash. But in relying on the principal talking point proffered by the Clinton campaign, he indicted himself on charges of bias. Ramesh Ponnuru and Scott Johnson both picked up on the irony. From the ABC News transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the Democrats have said this is -- this is an indication of your partisan interest. They say...
SCHWEIZER: Well...
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you used to work for President -- President Bush as a speechwriter. You're funded by the Koch brothers.
How do you respond to that?
SCHWEIZER: Well, George, what did I do when this book was completed?
I went to the investigative unit at "The New York Times," the investigative unit here at ABC. I went to the investigative unit at "The Washington Post." And I shared with them my findings, OK. These are not cupcakes. These are serious researchers and investigators.
And they are confirming what I've reported. So people can look at the facts and...
STEPHANOPOULOS: They haven't come -- they haven't confirmed any evidence of any crime.
SCHWEIZER: Well, but -- but it's not up to an author to prove crime. I mean do you think that when people first started looking at Governor McConnell or they started looking at Menendez, that they immediately had evidence?
You need subpoena power. You need access to records and information. You need access to e-mails.
There's all sorts of things that you can do. You can't leave it up to an author to say that an author has to prove a criminal case.
If working for President Bush as a speechwriter is enough to disqualify an author as a source of valid information, then George Stephanopoulos has no business working as a conveyer of political news. He was far, far more involved in the Bill Clinton presidential campaigns and presidency than Schweizer was with Bush. And he failed to mention his own involvement with the Clintons when critiquing Schweizer.
The video embedded below can be skipped to 6:15 to see when Stephanopoulos asks his self-incriminating question. But the entire interview is worth watching, if only to see how convincingly Schweizer responds to a hostile interrogator: