Former Dem wishes press would stop reporting on Wikileaks

Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman isn’t hiding his love for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

In a Monday interview on Fox Business News’ Imus in the Morning, the senator from Connecticut declared that the Fox Business Network, Fox News and anything Murdoch owned were his “favorite.”

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Host Don Imus asked Lieberman if thought The New York Times should be prosecuted for reporting on secret State Department cables released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

“I don’t know if you can prosecute the Times under existing Supreme Court decisions,” Lieberman said. “But I’ll tell you this, I wish the Times, just as an act of citizenship had said, ‘No, we’re not going to publish this stuff because it’s going to do the country damage.'”

“I know they will probably will say once it goes up on the WikiLeaks website in the world you can’t control it and they redacted, they blocked out some of the stuff in these cables,” he continued. “But, you know, The New York Times, afterall, is The New York Times with all its stature and I wish this stuff had appeared somewhere else. I wouldn’t be for prosecuting the Times, but I would say I wish they had shown better citizenship.”

Lieberman then commended CNN for turning down the WikiLeaks documents because they were asked to sign a pledge of anonymity.

“Incidentally, I heard last night, I was watching CNN and Joe [Johns] was on and he was doing the 10 o’clock news show and he said that CNN had been offered these documents by Wikileaks or a third party, but had turned it down because they refused to sign a pledge granting the source anonymity, which the Times did. And I give CNN and whoever else turned it down credit for doing that. The New York Times‘ hands are dirty in this and they should have said ‘no,'” Lieberman said.

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“I hate CNN,” Imus replied. “I wish you hadn’t brought that up.”

“I’m sorry about that! It just happened. But of course, really, Fox Business is my favorite and Fox generally, anything Rupert Murdoch owns,” Lieberman confessed.

The liberal blog Think Progress first noticed Lieberman’s comments to Imus.

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The Connecticut senator may have good reason to love Fox News. During a tight 2006 Senate race, a volunteer for Ted Lamont accused the news channel of placing campaign signs for Lieberman in advance of an interview.

“All of a sudden, two or three out-of-state vans (accompanied by a Fox News crew) pull up and unload a bunch of Lieberman lawn signs, placed right in front of the Lamont signs that had already been planted,” the volunteer said. “And, what do you know, after a few more minutes, who shows up but Joe himself, ready for the cameras.”

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This video is from Fox Business News’ Imus in the Morning, broadcast Nov. 29, 2010.



