Topic: Media Research Center
We've previously detailed the long love affair between Brent Bozell's Media Research Center and Ann Coulter, and its history of refusing to criticize anything she says, no matter how offensive. So it's no surprise that Bozell leaps to Coulter's defense yet again.
In a Jan. 6 MRC press release, Bozell completely swallows the anonymous, unverified claims made by Matt Drudge that Coulter was "banned for life" from NBC as indicated by her getting bumped from the "Today" show (even though she was rebooked two days later): "Ann, as a veteran banee from NBC, I can well attest to the fact that you will, in fact, survive this ordeal." Well, we've never appeared on NBC, but we don't go around claiming we've been "banned." Rebooking aside, Bozell rants against NBC:
“As for NBC, I have only one question: Have you lost your collective mind? Every broadcast network, yours included, is bleeding to death, your audiences abandoning you by the millions. The biggest body leaving is conservatives who correctly see you as having abandoned any pretense of objectivity in favor of a leftist political agenda. And how do you respond? By banning one of the best-known conservative voices in America. This is your commitment to political balance and the very idea of free speech, and the reason why, when the last of you leaves the building, you need to remember to turn out the lights.”
In his Jan. 7 column, Bozell demonstrates his utter hypocrisy on the issue. After citing "a list of inflammatory liberals who are welcomed on the TV morning shows," Bozell writes:
Call Coulter outrageous, call her a bomb-thrower, even state she goes beyond the pale of civility, if that’s your read. But do not assign that label to Coulter and then present your on-air love and kisses and giggles to all the public leftist hate-spewing that far exceeds any perceived incivility by Coulter. That is utterly transparent liberalism, and utterly transparent hypocrisy.
Doesn't that work the other way, too? If Bozell is going to get all apoplectic over the idea that controversial liberals appear on TV, shouldn't he treat Coulter the same way? Nope -- rather, he defends Coulter as being "fun for conservatives."
Just as he has defended Coulter all along, no matter what she says.
As we've wondered previously: Does Coulter have some sort of blackmail material on Bozell that makes him act so reflexively?