“Harry Reid is disgrace. But you expect this from Harry Reid,” The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes zinged on FNC’s Special Report Friday night before turning his ire on a certain Washington, DC-based anchor for CNN for advancing Reid’s baseless allegation that Mitt Romney didn’t pay any income tax for ten years.
“The disappointing cohort in this, to me, is journalists,” Hayes contended as he recalled how “I saw another network anchor ask a Romney supporter about this accusation, saying Harry Reid is a really honorable man.”
Hayes excoriated the unnamed journalist for telling the guest, as Hayes paraphrased, “there’s one way to settle this question and that’s for Mitt Romney to put his taxes out.” Hayes scolded: “That is exactly what that kind of a baseless, absurd charge is going to bring about and he’s having to answer questions about it all day. It’s ridiculous.”
Hayes’ recollection matches what occurred on CNN’s The Situation Room a little after 5:30 PM EDT where fill-in anchor Candy Crowley, a CNN veteran who hosts its Sunday morning State of the Union, cut off guest John Sununu when he dared cite Reid’s “smarmy land deals.” She jumped in: “Before we turn this into a Harry Reid bashing, let me just say we don’t know. He says -- he’s an honorable man, he says that he was told by someone at Bain that Mitt Romney did not pay taxes.”
Full rundown in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.