Why the '60 Minutes' interview of Marjorie Taylor Greene was a dangerous waste of air time

Every Sunday, before, during and after the morning talk shows, a debate rages on Twitter: Should (insert your network of choice here) stop putting election deniers and liars on the air to spew their disinformation?

Lesley Stahl and “60 Minutes” might have settled that issue with an interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Sunday's episode.

It was an embarrassment. It was also just weird.

Stahl didn’t push back nearly heard enough on some of Taylor Greene’s more lunatic claims. And whichever producer decided we needed video of Stahl watching Greene work out with weights certainly made an interesting choice.

As in, a choice to normalize a leading purveyor of radical fringe garbage. If the desired effect was to give Greene attention, job well done. If it was to inspire Greene to act more responsibly, it was a massive failure.

For instance, Monday afternoon, the day after the interview aired, Greene tweeted, “I’ll say it again: Democrats are the party of pedophiles.”

What a disgrace.

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Leslie Stahl didn't push back enough on Greene's pedophilia claims

You really need to see the interview in full to understand how worthless it was as news — anyone who knows who Greene is knows the objectionable kinds of things she says, the lies she spouts — but a clip that bounced around social media afterward made a pretty damning case.

In it, Stahl asked Greene about her claim that Democrats are pedophiles. Greene didn’t back down.

“I would definitely say so,” she said. “They support grooming children.”

No, they definitely don’t. To say otherwise is a lie and, given the climate in which we live, incredibly irresponsible.

To her credit, Stahl challenged her. “They are not pedophiles,” she said. “Why would you say that?”

Greene shot back: “Democrats support, even Joe Biden, the president himself, supports children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries. Sexualizing children is what pedophiles do to children.”

This is madness. So a seasoned reporter like Stahl pushed back, right?

Uh, no.

“Wow,” Stahl said, rolling her eyes. “OK. But my question really is, can’t you fight for what you believe in without all that name-calling and without the personal attacks?”

Why is that your question? Why wasn't her question something along the lines of: “Offer proof. Tangible proof. And if you can’t, stop making these baseless claims that betray your ignorance and your bigotry. And if you can’t do that, you are not welcome here.”

No such luck.

Liars don't deserve air time

Going into the interview, it was the Sunday-show debate writ large. There is a school of thought that you should give liars and deniers a platform — once, at least. It’s the give-’em-enough-rope theory — eventually they’ll hang themselves with their comments.

There was a time when that might have been effective. But now, the more outrageous and false the comments, the better, as far as some of the people peddling them are concerned.

They don’t just double down, as Greene did with her tweet Monday. They raise money off of it.

The other argument, obviously, is to not let these kinds of people on the air at all. And that’s looking like the better option with people like Greene, especially if you’re going to put up as weak a fight as Stahl did.

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There was no mention of the Jan. 6 insurrection, among other subjects

It wasn’t all smiles. Stahl asked Greene about all the names people call her — crazy, Q-clown, moron, etc. — Greene said they didn’t bother her. But when it came to pinning her down on her claims, the going was more slippery.

There was no mention of Greene speaking at a white-nationalist event last year. There was no mention of her full-throated defense of the Jan. 6 rioters. There was, however, a shot of Stahl and Greene walking outside Greene’s home, with Stahl asking how many acres she owned.

It could have been Barbara Walters walking with Katharine Hepburn, asking her what kind of tree she would be, only in a twisted, bizarro universe.

In Stahl’s defense, sort of, trying to interview someone like Greene is like trying to nail the proverbial jello to the wall. There’s no baseline of truth to get to.

So why do it at all?

Good question, one that “60 Minutes” may have answered in a way it hadn’t intended.

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dangers of Marjorie Taylor Greene's pedophile claims on '60 Minutes'