Topic: Media Research Center
As an all-but-official extension of the Romney campaign, the Media Research Center's job is to run interference on any Romney gaffe and to get out the talking points that it's always the media's fault for reporting it, not Romney's for committing it. We saw that again when a Romney campaign spokesman told reporters trying to ask Romney questions to "kiss my ass."
The official MRC storyline on this? It's wasn't the Romney spokesman being offensive, it was the media.
A July 31 NewsBusters post by Kyle Drennen blamed "bad behavior by reporters," not the adviser, for the incident.
Matt Hadro also flipped the blame, complaining that "CNN excused reporters for shouting questions that could have passed for heckling outside a sacred site in Poland, but ripped a Mitt Romney aide for responding by cursing at them." Hadro went on to lament that CNN's "slanted story made it seem that the press was simply up to business as usual, when the Romney aide's outburst was not unprovoked."
Scott Whitlock followed up by claiming it was "Democratic talking points" that the Romney aide was to blame for any of this.
What happened to the MRC that normally despises vulgarity? After all, these were the same folks who censored the word "ass" at one time. It's OK to be vulgar if you're a Republican, apparently.
All three of these writers are MRC employees. They have their marching orders, and they're getting paid to follow them -- even if it means
