Why Is Mary Matalin Randomly Bringing Up Her Business Partner Glenn Beck On CNN? [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109020001

September 02, 2011 1:44 am ET by Todd Gregory

During a Situation Room segment on Thursday, Wolf Blitzer led a discussion between CNN contributors Mary Matalin and Donna Brazile about controversial comments Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) made regarding the Tea Party. When Blitzer turned to Matalin for her opinion, seemingly apropos of nothing, Matalin brought up Glenn Beck and what she called his "astounding, remarkable series on the civil rights struggle in this country including black founding fathers."

This set off a heated back-and-forth about Beck between Matalin and Brazile over the course of the 11-minute segment. When confronted about Beck's notorious comment that President Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people," Matalin made a series of equivocating statements that mostly excused Beck's comment, saying he made it in the "context" of "a number of things that were in Barack Obama's background which hadn't been condemned, that Barack Obama didn't condemn."

According to her CNN bio, Matalin is the editor-in-chief of Threshold Editions, an imprint of publisher Simon & Schuster. Threshold has published most, if not all, of Beck's recent books. In fact, it's publishing Beck's The Snow Angel next month.

That fact didn't come up as Matalin randomly injected Beck into the conversation on CNN.