On Friday August 17, PBS’s Bill Moyers criticized Karl Rove for cynically invoking God and Christianity for political purposes while telling others that he is an agnostic, calling him “a skeptic, a secular manipulator.”
Two days later, when Rove appeared on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked him to take on Moyers’ criticism. “I’m a Christian. I go to church. I’m an Episcopalian,” responded Rove. “You know, Mr. Moyers ought to do a little bit better research before he does another drive-by slander.”
Earlier this week, Moyers argued that Wallace shouldn’t have taken Rove’s “every word as gospel,” but instead, should have challenged Rove’s assertion with other sources who report that he is an agnostic. On Fox News Sunday this morning, Wallace responded to Moyers’ rebuke, saying Moyers failed to do “reporting 101″:
Well, to save on postage, Bill, here’s my response. If you want to find out about someone’s religious beliefs, a good first step might be to ask him. If you had talked to Rove as I did, you would have found out he reads a devotional every day and the biggest charitable contribution he ever made was to his church. Of course, you never called Rove. That’s reporting 101, but it would have gotten in the way of a tasty story line about a non-believer flimflamming the Christian right. I guess, Bill, reporting is easier when you don’t worry about the facts.
Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlwmWC4eW00(rest of article & Transcript @ link)
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/26/bill-moyers-chris-wallace/