Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell is not, to put it succinctly, a fan of anal sex:
- In 2006, he complained that at a Comedy Central roast for William Shatner, "the audience was buried in man-on-man anal-sex and oral-sex jokes."
- In 2008, he was offended that "Ugly Betty" includes "catty references" to, among other things, "anal sex."
- On March 13, he bashed "Family Guy": "This Jesus-bashing is offensive, but it isn’t so surprising – it’s a 'Family Guy' staple. Now add the allusions to anal penetration and we’re on another trip down Grossout Lane."
Bozell has thus clearly established his opposition to references to anal sex in the media. So why does his organization give Rush Limbaugh a pass for making those very same "allusions to anal penetration"?
Limbaugh has a long history of making anal-sex references on his radio program and in interviews. But MRC employees, far from criticizing him for it, have uncritically repeated and even endorsed those references.
In a Jan. 22 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard touts Limbaugh's interview with Sean Hannity, during which he says of Barack Obama: "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds; that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever; because his father was black, because this is the first black president." Sheppard did not highlight or ciriticize the remark.
In a Jan. 28 NewsBusters post, Jeff Poor noted MSNBC's highlighting of the "grab the ankles" remark, but that's not what offended him. Rather, he complained that the remark was used to ask a Republican congressmanto "denounce the talk radio king."
A Jan. 28 NewsBusters post by Geoffrey Dickens transcribed the remark as it was repeated in a segment of MSNBC's "Hardball," but did not highlight it; instead, he asserted that Chris Matthews "fell into the same trap many other journalists have in misunderstanding the term 'Dittoheads.'"
And in an April 2 NewsBusters post, Jeff Poor wasn't offended that Limbaugh said of praise for Obama, "if he keeps this up throughout the G20, Gordon Brown will come down with anal poisoning and may die from it." No, he was offended that CNN's Rick Sanchez was offended by Limbaugh's words:
Throughout George W. Bush's presidency, insults were doled out repeatedly about the commander-in-chief and that was just a fact of life for the highest-ranking public official in the land. However, now there's a new president, there seems to be a different standard on how you talk about a president.
CNN's Rick Sanchez, the host of the 3 p.m. hour of "CNN Newsroom" on April 2 took offense to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh described a flowery praise of President Barack Obama by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
[...]
The alleged indiscretion: Limbaugh noted on his April 1 broadcast that Brown, who isn't exactly a free-market capitalist that reflects the ideals the United States was founded upon, was kissing up to Obama, in a way that might contaminate his person.
Poor goes on to dismiss the criticism as "an outcry by a lefty" -- even though his own boss has railed against those same terms.
So, apparently, it OK to reference anal sex only if you're trying to forward a right-wing agenda which, as Bozell has demonstrated, traditionally opposes anal sex? We're confused.
