Jake Tapper, like some of his other MSM counterparts (e.g., David Gregory) came to his Sunday show- ABC's "This Week" armed with GOP-based talking points ready to help Mitt Romney in his quest to reverse the nasty trend of his flailing poll numbers in the recent weeks. Tapper had on US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, and initially tried to bully her with his one-sided line of questioning about the recent events concerning Libya, Egypt & rest of the Middle East.
Tapper kept trying to insist that the Middle East hates the US now more than they ever did under GW Bush. Here is an excerpt from the transcript:
TAPPER: Look at this map, if you would. There have been protests around the world over the last several days. And President Obama pledged to repair America's relationships with the Muslim world. Why does the U.S. seem so impotent? And why is the U.S. even less popular today in some of these Muslim and Arab countries than it was four years ago?
Note the rapid sequence of Republican-sided framing talking points, especially the last 2 questions, neither of which are based in fact or empirical data.
And Here is Rice's response, which is quickly interrupted by Tapper:
RICE: Jake, we're not impotent. We're not even less popular, to challenge that assessment. I don't know on what basis you make that judgment. But let me -- let me point...
Tapper interrupts and continues to push his desired narrative:
TAPPER: It just seems that the U.S. government is powerless as this -- as this maelstrom erupts.
And Rice again responds (briefly interrupted by Tapper again):
RICE: It's actually the opposite. First of all, let's be clear about what transpired here. What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi, in many other parts of the region...
TAPPER: Tunisia, Khartoum...
RICE: ... was a result -- a direct result of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting. We have also been very clear in saying that there is no excuse for violence, there is -- that we have condemned it in the strongest possible terms.
But let's look at what's happened. It's quite the opposite of being impotent. We have worked with the governments in Egypt. President Obama picked up the phone and talked to President Morsi in Egypt. And as soon as he did that, the security provided to our personnel in our embassies dramatically increased. President Morsi...
And the conversation continues, with Ambassador Rice more than just holding her own, eventually rendering Tapper more or less silent as she talks - she emphasizes the leadership role the president has taken and the overall success of the Arab Spring and desire in the region to maintain positive ties with the US.
These are among her concluding statements (which also seems to be an indirect jab at Mitt Romney's, opportunistic frantic flailing all over the place):
So what we've seen is that the president has been incredibly calm, incredibly steady, and incredibly measured in his approach to this set of developments. And his interventions, his leadership has ensured that in Egypt, in Yemen, in Tunisia, in Libya, and many other parts of the world, that leaders have come out and made very plain that there's no excuse for this violence.
You can read the transcript of the entire segment:
http://abcnews.go.com/...
On another good note, I was also pleased to see Christianne Armanpour (former "This Week" host) a current guest, speak in plain, yet positive and encouraging terms about the events of this week. You can read her response to Tapper's questions from the transcript link provided above.
To his credit, Tapper is honest enough to acknowledge this:
Jake Tapper @jaketapper
I appreciate @AmbassadorRice coming on @ThisWeekABC to answer my questions, which is more than @MittRomney or @PaulRyanVP have done with me.