Topic: Media Research Center
The New York Daily News' provocative front-page headline after the San Bernardino mass shootings -- "God Isn't Fixing This," pointing out Republicans calling for prayers for the victims of the shooting are just offering "meaningless platitudes" in the absence of any GOP effort to address the issue of gun violence -- was sure to get some reaction. And Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell offers some of the dumbest.
Bozell rushed out a ranting statement denouncing the cover, complete with list of demands:
“The cover of today’s New York Daily News is offensive and disgraceful. For a major city newspaper to use their front page to mock people who are praying after what happened yesterday is unconscionable and unbefitting a publication that purports to be a serious media outlet.
“I am calling on the publisher of the New York Daily News to publicly do three things today:
1) Apologize not just to the GOP presidential candidates and Speaker of the House but every person of faith it offended;
2) Fire the person who is responsible for approving the front page story immediately; and
3) Launch an investigation into the personnel and policies that allowed this to happen so that it never happens again.
If the news media want to be atheists, that's their business. But how dare they now ridicule people of faith. This kind of anti-religious bigotry is precisely what fuels Islamic terrorists' hatred toward Americans."
Wait, what? First, it's not "anti-religious" (or, in the words of the MRC's Scott Whitlock, "anti-prayer") at all; it's pointing out the lack of deeds behind that religion.
Second, it's laughable that Bozell is demanding that the Daily News "fire the person who is responsible for approving the front page story immediately" when he himself lied for 15 years about having a ghostwriter for his syndicated column and never faced any consequences for it.
Third: Is Bozell really claiming that pointing out how Republicans are offering nothing but platitudes on gun violence is causing terrorist attacks? That's odd, since Bozell (and Tim Graham, the now-exposed ghostwriter of his columns) used his column the day before to mock the idea that the anti-abortion movement's rhetoric inspired Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear, despite the fact he ranted "no more baby parts" during his rampage, something he obviously heard in right-wing media coverage of the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress' dishonestly edited undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood officials.
Bozell doubled down on that silly criticizing-prayer-causes-terrorism meme in an appearance on Fox Business (keeping their mutual admiration society going):
BOZELL: This may rattle some people. But it is precisely this kind of behavior that is fueling the terrorism against America. It is not deliberate by any stretch of the imagination, but they see America as the Great Satan, as godless. And here is the New York Daily News insulting people of faith. This only gives them more impetus to come after us.
Bozell went on to rant that reason the Daily News comes up with the media is full of atheists and sneered that President Obama "is not a commander in chief. You see a community organizer."
Finally, Bozell declared: "This is not a terrorist attack, folks. This is an act of war. We are at war with these people." Is he talking about the media?
UPDATE: Bozell's not done ranting: He has a new press release out criticizing a couple TV people -- whom he has conflated into the entire news media -- who didn't obediently follow Bozell by denouncing the Daily News cover:
“The leftists 'news' media have unapologetically adopted the left’s anti-Second Amendment, anti-faith agenda and it has been on full display since this horrific attack. America is under attack and they want us disarmed. America offers prayerful comfort to the victims and the media ridicule it.
The news media’s solutions are as ridiculous as their values are repulsive.”
More or less repulsive than spending 15 years lying about writing your own column, Brent?
And Bozell appeared again on Fox Business in which he rehashed his anti-media and anti-Obama attacks and his deliberate misinterpretation of the Daily News front page.
Meanwhile, Bozell's "news" outlet, CNSNews.com, has a column by Alex McFarland saying that the victims of the shooting deserved to die because America has "turned its back" on God: "Well, what do we expect? God is just and his justice prevails, along with His love and mercy. But God is not weak or soft, and in a nation that has turned its back on Him, suffering will occur as a consequence."
