Chuck Todd Calls Rudy Giuliani Media Frenzy A ‘Race To The Bottom’ For Politicians, Press

NEW YORK -– “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd spent the first quarter of Sunday’s show covering the fallout from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s claim four days earlier that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America.

While giving the controversy more oxygen, Todd seemed conflicted. He began Sunday’s segment by describing the frenzy over Giuliani’s recent comments at a private dinner for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) as a “race to the bottom” for all involved, showing “why Americans are learning how to hate politics and the media.”

When discussing the outrage of the week with former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), Todd asked if anyone should care what Giuliani, who isn’t in office or running for one, thinks about the president. Todd later asked Barbour about Walker’s response to a question of whether Obama is Christian, yet acknowledged there’s debate over whether that question — posed Saturday by The Washington Post — was appropriate to ask. Before turning to the panelists to weigh in on all this, Todd lamented, “I’ve hated this story in so many ways.”

Todd’s ambivalence is likely felt by other political journalists who, after days of covering partisan volleys on cable news and social media, may get existential about how much of this — from Giuliani’s inflammatory comments to Walker not identifying Obama as Christian — actually matters to the public.

Hogan Gidley, who served as an adviser on the presidential campaigns of Mike Huckabee in 2008, and Rick Santorum in 2012, told The Huffington Post that such questions are “par for the course.”

“This is the process. These are the questions,” Gidley said. “They’re not all going to be in-depth questions about foreign policy or domestic economic policy. You’re going to get some odd questions.

“If Governor Walker thinks that’s out of bounds, or that’s a tough question, wait until he gets in a living room in Iowa or a coffee shop in New Hampshire or pier in South Carolina,” said Gidley, who isn’t currently aligned with any candidate, but could be in 2016.

Gidley recalled how voters asked candidates he worked for about votes cast more than a decade earlier, and how such exchanges with the public may also be covered by the media. “You’ve just got to be able to be a little more nimble than these candidates are showing so far,” he added.

Former top Obama adviser Robert Gibbs similarly pointed out on “Meet the Press” Sunday that “there are trap doors every day running for president, and if you want to run and talk about policy, you have to answer the very easy questions easily.”

Gibbs said that if Walker had just said he thought Obama is a Christian, then “there wouldn’t be a story in The Washington Post today.”

The Huffington Post