Flashback: Candy Crowley Dismissed Taliban's Oppression of Women

With the focus on the horrible job of “moderating” perpetrated by CNN’s Candy Crowley at the latest 2012 presidential debate, it is instructive to take a look back at some of her past work. For instance, in a 2010 interview with former President George W. Bush, Crowley dismissed Bush’s correct assertion that women are horribly oppressed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is interesting to contrast Crowley’s dismissive attitude about the Taliban’s oppression of women with the story of 14-year-old Malala Yousufazi, the Pakistani teen who defied the Islamist group and was shot in the head for asserting her right to education. This story is heartbreaking, but let us hope that her example can spur others to activism against the evils of radical Islam.

With this in mind, watch Crowley suggest the oppression of women by the Taliban was not any worse than that of other nations.

(At 1:50 into the video)

George W. Bush:: I would say that, uh, put yourself in the position of a young girl in Afghanistan and realize that her life will be incredibly brutalized and or thwarted by people like the Taliban. And the fundamental question – Is it worth it? – that’s the question we’ve got to ask. Does it matter to our own national security, or does it matter to our conscience, that women will be mistreated? I argue it does.

And I understand it’s difficult…

Candy Crowley: It is. And women are mistreated in a lot of different parts of the world.

Bush: But nothing like they were during the Taliban.

Notice that Crowley felt it necessary to point out that women are mistreated “in a lot of different parts of the world.” That equivocation really had no bearing on the discussion of the oppression by the Taliban, certainly, but what was she trying to say, here? The impression is that the oppression women face at the hands of the Taliban is no big deal because women are mistreated elsewhere, too.

One woman that gets it is actress Angelina Jolie. Jolie thinks that little Malala should be held up as an international hero. Hard to fault that logic, for sure.

But it seems that, to Crowley, Malala isn’t so special. After all, women are mistreated in a lot of different parts of the world.