Earlier, we wrote about Lou Dobbs and his radio coverage of the so-called “birther” movement which was kicked in to high gear this week due in part to this video from a town hall meeting held by Rep. Mike Castle, R-Delaware, on June 30.
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Well, we wanted to find out how the cable news networks have been covering the issue, so we did some more digging.
Media Matters has been covering the coverage of the birthers for more than a month and found Dobbs discussing the issue again last night on his CNN show with fellow radio talk show hosts. “The president, all he has to do is just produce the original birth certificate in a way and be done with it,” said Dobbs.
Other CNN anchors, including Rick Sanchez, have debated the issue. On Sanchez’s show yesterday conservative radio talker Ben Ferguson said, “I banned the topic from my show because I was so sick and tired of talking about it.”
Then last night on “Larry King Live”, after playing the clip from the Rep. Castle town hall, James Carville said, “That lady’s a poor thing, reads all of this goofy stuff that you hear on one of our rival networks.”
We’re not sure which “rival network” Carville is referring to, but Fox News has not covered the story and has not shown the video from the Rep. Castle event. FNC anchor Shepard Smith did bring up the issue during his much-publicized “frightening email” commentary last month.
MSNBC has been covering the birthers, for the most part, from the conspiracy theory angle. On Hardball, Chris Matthews talked to a Republican co-sponsor of a bill on the matter saying, “What you’re doing is appeasing the nutcases.” Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow and David Shuster, in for Keith Olbermann, have also discussed the story.