On Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge attempted to portray Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to curb costly benefits for public sector unions in his state as purely political: “Your teachers union, which votes Democratic…hit very hard. Yet your police, state trooper, firemen unions, who all supported and endorsed you, did not get touched in any of this. Why is that?” [Audio available here]
In the live interview, Walker quickly dismantled the entire premise of Wragge’s attack: “Chris that actually is not true. There are 314 fire and police unions in the state. Four of them endorsed me. All the rest endorsed my opponent.” Wragge was undeterred in his follow up question: “But you understand their position with some of the state workers, saying you’re essentially taking away their voice by trying to break these unions. You understand that, correct?”
Wragge began his interrogation by urging the Governor to back down on his budget-cutting proposal: “Your Democratic state senators have all fled the state, schools have been closed, the state house, for all intents and purposes, is a mad house right now. And you’ve talked about potentially mobilizing the national guard. So has your position softened at all here?” Walker replied: “No. This is a bold political move, but it is a modest request of our employees….what we’re asking for is still a lot less than what most of our average taxpayers are paying [for health and pension benefits].”
Even after the interview was over, Wragge couldn’t help but proclaim to fellow co-host Erica Hill: “He talks about modest requests. But there’s about 10,000 to 15,000 people in that state house each and every day the last few days who don’t feel the same way.”
At the top of the show, Hill teased the interview this way: “A battle over budget cuts gets nasty in Wisconsin. Democratic lawmakers walk out, as more than 10,000 state workers and teachers descend on the capitol in a massive protest. We will ask the Republican governor if he’s trying to balance the budget, or break apart the unions.” Introducing a report by correspondent Cynthia Bowers prior to the interview, Wragge declared: “In Wisconsin today, Republican lawmakers will try to force a vote on a plan to cut back union rights for state workers.”
In her report, Bowers continued to paint Walker and state Republican legislators as villains: “And tens of thousands of people are expected to once again descend upon this capitol building today to protest what they say are anti-union legislation rules….more than 10,000 protesters rallied against a proposed budget bill they called drastic and extreme.”
Bowers’ report featured six sound bites. Four of them were of protestors chanting “Kill the bill!” and condemning the legislation as “bull crap” that would “take away all of our rights.” One was of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeating President Obama’s remark that the proposal was “an assault on unions.” Finally, the last sound bite was from Walker, explaining: “This is a fraction of what most people, working-class, middle-class citizens in the state are paying, in terms of what we’re asking for.”
Concluding her piece, Bowers observed: “Even though Republicans have the support [to pass the legislation], they cannot force the vote until at least one Democrat comes back, and so far, all of them remain secluded.” She failed to further mention that Democratic legislators were hiding in a hotel in Illinois rather than performing their duties as Wisconsin elected officials.
Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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