{"id":8190,"date":"2006-08-12T10:50:25","date_gmt":"2006-08-12T14:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8190.html"},"modified":"2006-08-12T10:50:25","modified_gmt":"2006-08-12T14:50:25","slug":"when-the-media-buys-into-the-smear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-the-media-buys-into-the-smear\/","title":{"rendered":"When the media buys into the smear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Media Matters’ Jamison Foser argued<\/a> yesterday that, in the wake of [tag]Ned Lamont[\/tag]’s primary victory this week, the “political [tag]media[\/tag] were awash in pro-[tag]Lieberman[\/tag] and pro-Republican spin about Lamont, Connecticut voters, and what it all means for this fall’s congressional elections.” If anything, that’s understating the case.<\/p>\n

Consider these items from just the last 24 hours.<\/p>\n

* Yesterday on CNN Headline News, anchor [tag]Chuck Roberts[\/tag] discussed the political implications of this week’s thwarted terrorist plot with Hotline senior editor John Mercurio. Roberts asked Mercurio, “How does this factor into the Lieberman\/[tag]Lamont[\/tag] contest? And might some argue, as some have, that Lamont is the [tag]al Qaeda[\/tag] [tag]candidate[\/tag]<\/a>?”<\/p>\n

* Today, Congressional Quarterly ran a non-partisan election analysis of Senate races in the Northeast, and described Lamont, matter-of-factly, as a “vitriolic critic<\/a> of the Iraq War.” As my friend NAR noted in an email, Lamont may be a vehement<\/i> critic of the war, but “[tag]vitriolic[\/tag]”?<\/p>\n

* Yesterday, nationally-syndicated columnist [tag]Cal Thomas[\/tag] argued, in print, that Lieberman primary defeat “completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing<\/a>.” The [tag]Taliban[\/tag] [tag]Democrats[\/tag], he added, “are willing to ‘kill’ one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party’s kook fringe…. Taliban Democrats have effectively issued a political ‘fatwa’ that warns all Democrats not to deviate from their narrow line, or else face the end of their careers through a political jihad. Perhaps the few remaining rational Democrats should put on their burkas now and submit to the will of the party mullahs.”<\/p>\n

I can appreciate the fact that the Republican push-back against Lamont is “highly coordinated<\/a>,” but it’s almost impressive how quickly the far-right attacks have been integrated into the national news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media Matters’ Jamison Foser argued yesterday that, in the wake of [tag]Ned Lamont[\/tag]’s primary victory this week, the “political [tag]media[\/tag] were awash in pro-[tag]Lieberman[\/tag] and pro-Republican spin about Lamont, Connecticut voters, and what it all means for this fall’s congressional elections.” If anything, that’s understating the case. Consider these items from just the last 24 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}