CNN Bans Clinton Supporters Carville and Begala from Primary Coverage

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 10:15 AM on January 25, 2008.

The problem first emerged way back in March. On the "Situation Room," James Carville, a contracted CNN political commentator, offered some relatively mild criticism of Barack Obama. Carville said the Illinois senator was "less-than-impressive" at a recent health care forum, adding, "[Obama] needs to get up to speed on a couple of these issues."

Under most circumstances, that would hardly have raised an eyebrow. But Carville had just issued fundraising solicitations on behalf of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, which he'd already endorsed. Pressed on the conflict of interest, Carville conceded that he would be "cognizant" of appearances, and would disclose his preference to CNN viewers when criticizing Clinton's Democratic rivals.

He added, however, that if he was transparent about his bias every time he was critical of another Democrat, it would make for "horrible TV."

Greg Sargent reported last night that, 10 months after this issue first arose, CNN is benching its Hillary-backing analysts.

I've just learned that CNN has told top Dem strategists James Carville, Paul Begala, and Robert Zimmerman -- who are CNN mainstays but are all Hillary supporters -- that they will not be doing any more political analysis on the network until the Democratic primary has reached a conclusion.

I'm also told that this move came after the Obama campaign repeatedly complained to high level officials at CNN about the presence of Carville and Begala on the network. [...]

Sam Feist, CNN's political director, also confirmed the decision to me. "As we got closer to the voting, we made a decision to make sure that all the analysts that are on are non-aligned," Feist said, adding that the decision had been made around the start of December. "Carville and Begala are two of the best analysts around and we look forward to seeing them on CNN plenty of times in the future, once the nominating process has ended."

Clinton backers can still appear on the network, but as on-air surrogates.

I think this was definitely the right call.

The first hurdle, of course, was a straightforward question of disclosure and transparency. By any reasonable measure, if a political commentator is actively supporting one candidate, and criticizing that candidate's rival on CNN, viewers should be made aware of the conflict of interest. By this standard, Carville, Begala, and Zimmerman were in good shape.

The second hurdle, which was much tougher, was one of too many hats. If Carville appears on Larry King on a Wednesday as an official Clinton campaign surrogate, and then appears on Thursday on the Situation Room as an objective Democratic analyst, it makes for awkward journalism. These guys have two hats -- candidate supporter and neutral observer -- that can't be worn at the same time, but they've been doing just that for nearly a year.

There's also the complete disregard for balance. CNN has been offering election coverage with three unabashed Clinton backers, and no similarly aligned supporters of Edwards and/or Obama. It certainly doesn't look right.

Greg noted, however, that the decision is at least somewhat controversial inside the network.

"People inside CNN are surprised," one person involved with CNN programming told me. "No other network buckled to this political pressure. CNN has removed from its lineup top analysts who know about the national political scene."

I think this person's partially right, but the points are unpersuasive. For one thing, a network like Fox News will feature enthusiastic Giuliani boosters on the air, but Fox News is a propaganda machine with no credibility; CNN needs to aim higher. For another, Carville, Begala, and Zimmerman are competent experts on the national political scene, but I'm quite confident CNN can find professional journalists who aren't aligned with a specific candidate to offer viewers equally strong election analysis.

Either way, it's an interesting move. Kudos to Greg for the scoop.

Tagged as: clinton, obama, cnn, carville, begala

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.