Fresh from highlighting the lack of professionalism exhibited by Ann Curry as she was booted off the Today Show, I was jostled by another blog’s link to this one reminding me that I already had an ethics run-in with her replacement, the fresh-faced, cute as a button, proudly biased and ignorant Savannah Guthrie, who continues the devolution of the female liberal mouthpiece co-anchor position on the show that began with Barbara Walters.

The hard conservative site Freedom Report alerted me that I had blown the whistle on Guthrie’s incompetence in an April, 2011 post, after she tried to “gotcha!” Donald Trump and exposed her own Constitutional illiteracy instead. I had forgotten the episode, perhaps because it forced me to defend The Donald, which was and is about as appealing to me as snorting skunks. You can read the post here. A quick summary: Guthrie attempted to argue against Trump’s pro-life views by asking the Constitutional equivalent of the automobile-tuning query asked of expert witness/hairdresser Marisa Tomei in the climax of  the classic,”My Cousin Vinnie,” to which she replies, “It’s a bullshit question!”:

Vincent Gambini: You’re Honor, Miss Vito’s expertise is in general automotive knowledge. It is in this area that her testimony will be applicable. Now if Mr. Trotter wishes to voir dire the witness as the extent of her expertise in this area, I’m sure he’s gonna be more than satisfied.

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Ok.

District AttorneyTrotter: Alright, alright. Now, Miss Vito, being an expert on general automotive knowledge, can you tell me what would be the correct ignition timing be on a 1955 Bellaire Chevrolet with a 327 cubic engine and a 4-barrel carburetor.

Vito: It’s a bullshit question.

Trotter: Does that mean that you can’t answer it?

Vito: It’s a bullshit question! It’s impossible to answer.

Trotter: It’s impossible because you don’t know the answer!

Vito: Nobody could answer that question!

Trotter: Your Honor, I move to disqualify Miss Vito as a expert witness.

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Can you answer the question?

Vito: No. It is a trick question.

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Why is it a trick question?

Vincent Gambini: (to his clients) Watch this.

Vito: ‘Cause Chevy didn’t make a 327 in ’55. The 327 didn’t come out til ’62. And it wasn’t offered in the Bellaire with the 4-barrel carburetor til ’64. However, in 1964 the correct ignition timing would be 4 degrees before top dead center.

Trotter: Well, uh, she’s acceptable, Your Honor.

Guthrie’s question about the Constitution’s “right to privacy” was actually much worse than Trotter’s, because while a district attorney isn’t likely to know about the arcana of car repairs, journalists asking questions about the Bill of Rights are obligated to have at least read it since college. Trump attempted to call her on her sloppiness, and some of Guthrie’s liberal allies, like the Daily Beast and Guthrie’s equally equally ignorant and biased colleague Vaughn Ververs, wrote that Trump had been exposed, when in fact the one exposed—-as unprofessional, unfair, unobjective, and worst of all, ill-informed—was Savannah Guthrie.

At NBC, whitewasher of the Fast and Furious scandal, distorter of the Zimmerman 911 tapes, proud employer of Al Sharpton, and round-the-clock flack machine for President Obama, this made her the perfect choice to take over from Ann Curry, because she’s even less professional than Ann is.

Boy, does Jane Pauley look good now!

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Pointer and Graphic: Freedom Report

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.