Montage: Charlie Rose, Democrats’ Favorite Interviewer
Charlie Rose, host of an eponymous PBS broadcast famous for its long-form interviews with the biggest names in news, was today suspended after eight women came forward and accused the anchorman of groping, sexual harassment, and inappropriate office behavior.
These women say Rose abused his management role to hire attractive, female producers, whom he would wine and dine and attempt to bed, if not outright molest, the Washington Post reports.
But before he came under fire for his sexual antics, Rose was also known for his coziness with the leading lights of liberalism.
Indeed, The Charlie Rose Show could very well be Democrats' all-time favorite place to be interviewed. With its aura of prestige, Democrats like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett could sit down for a "serious" interview knowing they would leave looking better than when they arrived.
Rose at one point acknowledged on air that he's good friends with Clinton.
Republicans, on the other hand, could usually expect a sparring match.
Interviewing Hillary in September, Rose began by reading her an extended, glowing review of the former first lady's book:
"First of all, it’s a bestseller, a runaway bestseller. I think the fastest rising, non-fiction book in five years. This is what one reviewer said.: 'What Happened is not one book, but many. It is a candid and blackly funny account of her mood in the direct aftermath of losing to Donald Trump. It is a post-mortem, in which she is both coroner and corpse. It is a feminist manifesto. It is a score-settling jubilee. It is a rant against James Comey, Bernie Sanders, the media, James B. Comey, Vladimir Putin, and James B. Comey. It’s a primer on Russian spying. It is a thumping of Trump. I sometimes wonder: If you add together his time spent on golf, Twitter and cable news', she writes, 'what’s left?' So, congratulations."
In a 2014 interview with Hillary, Rose began by reciting to Clinton a poem written about her by Maya Angelou. "A woman takes responsibility for the times she takes up and the space she occupies," he crooned. "Hillary Clinton is a woman."
By contrast, when Paul Ryan recently appeared on CBS This Morning, which Rose co-hosts, the 75-year-old host peppered him with questions about why Republicans are not making gun control a higher priority.
When Marco Rubio appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, the host asked the senator to tell him "the best thing you can say" about ObamaCare. Rose then debated Rubio after he failed to offer praise of the law.
When Rose reports the news, his political preferences are equally transparent.
In a 2015 CBS This Morning report on then Vice President Joe Biden getting "handsy" with a Ashton Carter's wife during his swearing-in ceremony, Rose wrote off the incident as Biden being "consoling."
When Rose reported on the House Select Committee on Benghazi's final report, he (inaccurately) reported, "found no new evidence of wrong-doing by Hillary Clinton."
As the Obama Administration finalized its nuclear deal with Iran, Rose excitedly and repeatedly referred to it as "historic."
In October 2014, Republicans appeared set to win a larger stake over Congress, a flummoxed Rose asked "Why is it they don't like" President Obama?
