***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
There’s a reason CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell was absolutely failing to boost ratings for CBS’s flagship evening newscast. Following the partisan passage of the House’s impeachment procedures on Thursday, O’Donnell sat down with, or rather rolled over for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). She lobbed marshmallow-like questions at him so he could effectively set the narrative for impeachment and smear Republican grievances with the process.
Her first hard-hitting question was this bullet of a fastball: “Republicans say the rules are unfair. Are they?” To which Schiff responded, “No.”
“In fact, the rules are very much the same as they were during the Nixon impeachment, during the Clinton impeachment,” he went on to argue. “The American people will get to see both with the release of the transcripts and with the conduct of the open hearings, that they’re fair and they’re equal to both sides.”
Her next questions had a little bit more heat and actually addressed Republicans’ concerns:
But as we get ready for these public hearings that everyone can watch, Republicans say they're concerned that the Democrats will block the witnesses that they want to hear from. Can you assure them that you won't reject those witnesses?
But O’Donnell allowed Schiff to preemptively discredit any and all witnesses Republicans were interested in calling on.
(...)