Editor's note: This piece was co-authored by Tim Graham.
It is amazing the degree to which the media can politicize -- always from a leftist perspective -- just about anything in the news. No matter what the issue, there's the spin, always the spin, especially in the "analysis" reports where "journalists" go in screech advocacy mode while projecting a sober, dispassionate evaluation.
Burger King announced that it could no longer abide by our corporate tax rate, the highest in the industrial world, and was moving to Canada, so ABC's Diane Sawyer decided this was a betrayal of the company's civic responsibility, stating that Burger King now stands "accused of doing something a lot of Americans question: defecting, heading north of the border to Canada, and saving a lot of tax money." Chris Matthews channeled his inner Abbie Hoffman to savage Burger King backer Warren Buffett for daring to wish a profit for his investors. "We used to call these guys 'pigs' back in the Sixties. They only liked America because it was a good place to make money."
Fox's liberal Geraldo Rivera revealed his genius: "The Second Amendment, the provision that gives every American the right to keep and bear arms, is blind and stupid." Speaking of stupidity, NBC's Chuck Todd suggested the GOP's problem with female voters is that they think, "You know what? There's just too many crazy white guys who have crazy theories about my reproductive system and I'm not listening."
The Los Angeles Times went Joe Biden, inventing a new term for illegal aliens in the never-ending attempt to say anything but illegal aliens: "Informal workers are growing part of California's economy." They "labored unofficially." Who opposes the leftist amnesty agenda? Fox's leftist Juan Williams will tell you. "If you look at the core constituency, the people who are in, let's say, tea party opposition, support impeachment, there's no diversity. It's a white, older group of people. The Republican Party has become almost a completely white party."
August was all Ferguson all the time, with hysteria the order of the day. CBS reporter Vladimir Duthiers went Al Sharpton in his dispassionate analysis of the Ferguson shooting, "Sounds to me as if the cops are protected no matter what they do." MSNBC's Michelle Bernard went off the rails. "There is a war on black boys in this country" and "it's going to turn into a genocide if it doesn't stop." Yikes. Apparently this war is so pronounced that it explains -- justifies? -- crime by blacks. At least that's what CNN's Don Lemon thinks. "I understand," he said understandingly. "There should never be rioting, but it happens when people are frustrated."
When it was announced that Attorney General Eric Holder would take time from his busy IRS abuse investigation to visit Ferguson, it was treated like the Second Coming. "I'm a Christian preacher, and God finally said, 'Look, I can't send nobody else. I got to go myself.' And I ain't saying that Obama is Jesus, but for many of his followers he is." So sayeth MSNBC's Michael Eric Dyson.
August was a good month for character assassination. Think Progress Editor Alan Pyke tweeted for all to read, "I hope Roger Ailes dies slow, painful, and soon. The evil that man has done to the American tapestry is unprecedented for an individual." It was also a good month for incoherent thought. Rolling Stone writer Reid Cherlin absurdly claimed, "No, Barack Obama never had reporters eating out of his hand the way that right-wingers love to allege." Actor Eric Roberts proved, again, why actors should steer clear of polemics -- and Twitter: "W killed James Foley. George W. Bush. He is the forgotten president as we forget & block severe trauma." But "Barack Obama stands for compassion."
Disgraced anchor Dan Rather opened fire on anyone suggesting military intervention against ISIS, proclaiming he'll listen only "if you tell me you are prepared to send your son, your daughter, your grandson, your granddaughter to that war of which you are beating the drums." NBC terrorism "expert" Evan Kohlmann played the moral equivalency card for ISIS, suggesting the terrorists have an excuse: "They can easily justify it now because, if anyone questions them, they point to Abu Ghraib photos. They point to Gitmo."
Finally, some fresh air in the month of August about ISIS from NBC's Richard Engel: "The build-up of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was incredibly predictable. ... So that we have no strategy to deal with ISIS is quite -- is quite ridiculous at this stage."
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