I don’t watch the Sunday talk shows. Â But did anyone ask anyone about the Shelby Shakedown?
Update Steve Benen reports that of the five shows, three ignored it, one brushed over it, and only Jake Tapper actually covered it:
PODESTA: But, you know, I come back to — to attack the FBI for their conduct in this case as the Republican leadership has done, I think is unconscionable.
By the end of the week, we had — we had Senator Shelby putting a hold on 70 nominees, including the head of the intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, the head of intelligence at Department of State. I mean, what gives here? Are these people serious or are they just playing politics?
TAPPER: Well, and then that’s interesting, because all this debate, all this partisanship comes during a period, a two-week period, where President Obama is really hitting home the idea that there needs to be more bipartisanship. In fact, here’s the president speaking yesterday at the Democratic National Committee’s winter retreat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: I’m proud to be a Democrat. I’m proud to be a leader of this great party. But I also know that we can’t solve all of our problems alone. So we need to extend our hands to the other side. We’ve been working on them. Because if we’re going to change the ways of Washington, we’re going to have to change its tone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, Al, that speech came one day after the White House attacked Senator Shelby for the very thing John was just talking about. He had put blanket holds on all nominees because he was concerned, he says, about some national security issues. What’s going on here?
HUNT: Well, first of all, Senator Shelby is totally fraudulent on this to begin with. He was concerned about pork for his home state of Alabama. This is as bad as the Nebraska carve-out. It’s outrageous what he did. It’s, I think, an abuse of senatorial prerogative.
Neither George Will nor Peggy Noonan rose to Shelby’s defense, but neither one bothered to criticize him, either. We’re at war in two theaters, and neither the State Department nor the Department of Homeland Security has an intelligence chief because Richard Shelby wants some pork, and “conservatives” like Noonan and Will have nothing to say.
I guess nobody else did, either. My guess would be either they didn't, or they discussed it in the most whitewashed terms.