Topic: NewsBusters
How times change.
It was just a few weeks ago that NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard bashed a Department of Homeland Security report noting that, among other things, returning Iraq war veterans who are "facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks." In an April 14 NewsBusters post, Sheppard said the report "read like the paranoid accusations of liberal bloggers and leftwing shills on MSNBC and elsewhere."
Meanwhile, a CBS sports analyst, writing for a Dallas city magazine, appeared to back that up by stating that "if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there`s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death." But Sheppard couldn't bring himself to offer a forceful condemnation of the remarks -- instead, he equivocates and justifies. From a May 9 NewsBusters post:
Unfortunately, missing in all the outrage was some context. Now, readers are advised that I am by no means condoning what Feherty wrote. Depicting an American soldier killing elected officials is certainly going over the line. Let's be clear about that.
However, this "D" magazine issue devoted a good deal of space for Dallas writers to offer their opinions of how the area will be impacted by George W. Bush's return.[...]
So, before his comments about Pelosi and Reid, Feherty advocated the death of pro-lifers, child molesters, and those opposed to gay marriage.
[...]
As such, Feherty's point, however callously made, was that the media have been unduly harsh on Bush, and that despite all the anti-war sentiments, folks in the press have improperly represented the military's view of the former President, and have withheld from the public the contempt our soldiers feel for elected officials that have undermined their efforts.
Does that make Feherty's picture in that elevator any more acceptable?
To Sheppard, apparently it does.
As a special bonus, Sheppard repeats the false claim that the "far left" Media Matters (disclosure: our employer) is "George Soros funded."
