Following Saturday’s GOP CBS/National Journal debate, the Michele Bachmann campaign accused CBS News of organizing a biased event by purposefully keeping her questions to a minimum. After accidently receiving an internal email from John Dickerson – the newly appointed political director for CBS News – her campaign released a screenshot of the correspondence to reporters. Via The Hill:
Dickerson was responding to an email sent to CBS News staffers discussing the possibility of booking Bachmann for a webcast interview. The initial email notes that Alice Stewart, Bachmann's spokeswoman, was included in the email chain, but Dickerson appeared not to have noticed when he sent his reply to the group."Okay let's keep it loose though since she's not going to get many questions and she's nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else," Dickerson wrote.
Bachmann has been struggling in the polls since her peak in August, and is currently hovering around 4 percent.
CBS News, however, defended the email explaining it was merely “a candid exchange about the reality of the circumstances.” According to Mediaite, a screenshot of the email was posted on Bachmann’s Facebook page by Keith Nahigian – her campaign manager – with the following caption:
While Michele has been onstage at tonight’s debate demonstrating strong leadership on foreign policy and national security, we received concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows – the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message and limiting Michele’s questions.View the attached email by CBS News’ political director from earlier today–we need to show the liberal media elite that we won’t stand for this outrageous manipulation. Help us fight this affront by sharing this with your friends.