Topic: NewsBusters
In a Dec. 12 NewsBusters post, Scott Whitlock baselessly speculated that CNN's Bob Franken "seemed downright embarrassed to be reporting the fact that Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes incorrectly responded to a correspondent’s question of who, Shiite or Sunni, primarily comprise al-Qaeda." Whitlock also suggested that CNN was wrong to note "examples of Republicans flubbing such quizzes." But in 1999, when then-candidate for president George W. Bush, in Franken's words, "flubbed a similar impromptu quiz about world leaders," the MRC was eager to deflect attention from it by noting examples of Democrats doing the same thing.
In a Nov. 9, 1999, CyberAlert, Brent Baker noted that "ABC's World News Tonight jumped on how George W. Bush could not identify some obscure world leaders" (those of Chechnya, India or Pakistan, which given subsequent events are not exactly "obscure"), then claimed that the show had not noted an incident in which "Gore could not answer some farm questions posed by Diane Sawyer on 20/20."
