Flashback: ABC Gushed Over ‘Charming,’ ‘Thoughtful’ Assad

FLASHBACK: ABC Gushed Over ‘Charming,’ ‘Thoughtful’ Assad (NewsBusters)

Reacting to the air strikes ordered by President Trump, Good Morning America journalist Martha Raddatz on Friday assailed the “horrific chemical attack” by Syria’s dictator. Given that the war criminal Bashar al-Assad brutally massacred over 70 of his own people, the journalists at ABC might be embarrassed at how, through the years, they fawned over the “charming,” “intelligent,” “thoughtful” tyrant.   

On July 7, 2008, Barbara Walters gushed to her View co-hosts about interviewing the dictator: “From my experience, he was very intelligent, well-informed, thoughtful.... [He] wants very much to have relations with the United States.” Walters assured, “People say, ‘Oh, you're brainwashed.’ But that was not it!” 

Oh, you’re not brainwashed, Barbara?  Walters praised the Syrian state, cheering, “They have total freedom of religion.”