Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Ryan Foley writes in a Feb. 1 post:
During Wednesday’s edition of Erin Burnett OutFront, the eponymous host and her panel reacted to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders’s declaration that God “wanted Donald Trump to become President” during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Burnett seemed to think that God playing a role in the electoral politics of the United States posed a direct threat to democracy.
Burnett seemed shocked by Sanders’s statement, arguing that “it’s a big thing to say that God...whatever God may be, he, she, it...wanted Donald Trump to become President.” Burnett asked Scott Jennings, former advisor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, “does that make you blanch at all or are you okay with that?” Jennings responded, “I find it quite likely that supporters of any politician who wins believe that it was God’s plan for that politician to win. So, no, I’m not surprised to hear someone saying that.”
Burnett proceeded to scoff at the idea that God would have anything to do with electoral politics in the United States: “I thought we live in a democracy, right? The will of the people and now you’re saying it’s the will of God. I don’t know, there’s something about it that seems quite jarring to me, frankly.” Jennings stressed that he believed in the will of the people while proclaiming that “I happen to believe in the will of God and that his will will be done on this Earth whether we like it or not.” Burnett still seemed to have a hard time wrapping her head around that idea, asking Jennings, “And you think that God cares who’s President of the United States?”
Needless to say, there's a double standard. The MRC was much less forgiving of the idea that God plays a role in the electoral politics of the United States when the result of his intervention was Barack Obama.
Lachlan Markay mockingly wrote in a 2009 post that musician Sting "told the Associated Press that he believes that Obama is a gift from Heaven, delivered to shepherd the befuddled masses to providence," further sneering that Sting's "audacious deification of the President" was "Hollywood sophistry at its best."
A 2008 post by Mark Finkelstein similarly mocked Spike Lee for saying something similar:
B.C. and A.D? Get with it, old man. History is henceforth divided into the eras of B.B. and A.B.—Before and After Barack. And George W. might have been "misunderestimated" as he engaged in "strategery." But that's so, like, yesterday. Barack Obama is "pre-deortained." By whom? Spike Lee stopped short of saying God's hand is at work. But he was clearly speaking in quasi-religious terms in discussing The One on today's Morning Joe.
Scott Whitlock huffed in a "This Week in Media Bias History" post that it was "sheer insanity" for Newsweek editor Evan Thomas to claim in 2009 that "Obama’s standing above the country... above the world. He’s sort of God." He then sneered, "You knew some journalist would say it."
Whitlock wasn't done sneering, writing this in another "This Week" post: "Liberal journalists don’t like conservatives bringing up religion and faith, but it’s apparently okay for them to insist God supports Democratic political goals. On December 4, 2013, then-MSNBC host Ed Schultz weighed in on how God feels about ObamaCare: 'I’ll tell you what I think God thinks of the Affordable Care Act. It’s a big "amen."'"
So it's "media bias"when someone invokes God for a Democrat, but mocking someone's sincere faith when that person invokes God for a Republican. Got it.
