Over the last year or so, David Brody of Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network has gone from a complete unknown to a regular panelist on “Meet the Press.” And now it looks as if he is about to hit the big time
Building upon its winning coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign and other political contests, CNN has added five more top political reporters and commentators to its deep bench of political contributors and analysts. Each of these respected observers of politics will provide analysis and commentary as CNN continues its political coverage.
The contributors, who will appear across CNN’s numerous platforms in the coming days, include:
· David Brody, senior national correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. A veteran journalist of more than 20 years, Brody writes the political blog, “The Brody File.”
While his blogging at The Brody File has been of great value to those of us who follow the Religious Right, it is safe to say that his political analysis has not always been unbiased or, for that matter, particularly insightful. Take, for example, this post he wrote a few weeks ago built around a video of Barack Obama relating a story about his young daughter’s misunderstanding of the lyrics of the song “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” thinking it was “Drop It Like a Sock.”
Nothing more than a cute story? Not if you are Brody and have a right-wing agenda that you are trying to pass off as analysis:
There are two points as to why The Brody File felt compelled to run this video.
First of all, Obama is making a concerted effort to reach out to faith voters, especially Evangelicals. But if you're going to allow your three year old daughter to listen to a song like that (no matter if she doesn't understand the lyrics) I think that will give faith voters pause. Forget faith voters. It may give others pause too. Secondly, Obama has associations with popular rap artists and has made it clear that he does like some rap music, but has issues with the lyrics. Obama has been outspoken about how rap artists need to clean up their act and he's been very public about how these lyrics are offensive. But he has also said that he is for freedom of speech and that parents must take the lead and control what their children listen to and watch on TV.
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So two questions: Is he turning off potential voters in the heartland by aligning himself with some of these artist? And is it somewhat hypocritical for Obama to criticize these rap artists and yet listen to the music?
Obama is going to have to walk a fine balancing act. It's one that many African Americans have had to do for sometime - living in two different worlds -- because he doesn't want to alienate his supporters in Urban America, yet he doesn't want to turn off those who may not understand this connection. This election is forcing the nation to deal with some hard, unpleasant realities and issues that are not going to go away.
It this the sort of hackneyed political analysis that CNN thinks its viewers need heading into the election?
