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Thursday, January 08, 2009

The Quintessential Example of Media Hypocrisy

A couple of days ago Matt Drudge caused a firestorm of controversy to sweep conservative circles when he reported that NBC was considering banning columnist Ann Coulter 'for life.'

That may yet happen, no doubt, but not yet.

Coulter appeared on NBC's Today Show yesterday morning, and once again caused liberals and mainstream media types to grind their teeth--all as part of making her rounds to promote her new book.

But, as L. Brent Bozell III writes at CNS News, the mainstream media's treatment of Coulter is a blatant example of just how thoroughly partisan it is...and how much it hates the truth.

States Bozell:

It’s easy to run down a list of inflammatory liberals who are welcomed on the TV morning shows. Start with Kitty Kelley’s wild “investigative” books on the Reagans or the Bushes. Or Michael Moore’s kooky conspiracy theories. Or Al Franken suggesting Karl Rove and Scooter Libby should be executed over Plamegate. (NBC’s Matt Lauer and his off-camera crew laughed at that.)

Or recall Bill Maher on his HBO show in 2007 suggesting Arianna Huffington shouldn’t ban commenters on her website wishing Dick Cheney had died in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan. “That’s a funny joke,” Maher said. “If this isn’t China, shouldn’t you be able to say that?” He added that Cheney’s death by suicide bomber might be a public service: “I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.”

Harry Smith hosted Maher on CBS just months ago on his faith-mocking movie “Religulous” and didn’t say one discouraging word to him about his caustic remarks about Cheney or his hateful anti-Christian bigotry. Not one word.

And yet, when Coulter exhibits the very same type of acerbic rhetoric aimed at liberals instead of conservatives, the mainstream media in its false righteous indignation acts as if it has the moral authority to pronounce judgment.

Not as long as Matthews, Olbermann, Harry Smith, Matt Lauer, Michael Moore, or Al Franken are around...

And therefore, the Coulter flap is the quintessential example of media hypocrisy.

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