Topic: NewsBusters
Ryan Robertson uses a Dec. 5 NewsBusters post to complain that Roy Beck, leader of the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, was being unfairly portrayed in an interview in MSNBC. Robertson uncritically insists that "Numbers USA is a grassroots organization and an influential lobbyist group that concerns itself with immigration reform and the threat of mass amnesty."
What "threat of mass amnesty" is Robertson talking about? He doesn't say. As we've previously pointed out, the comprehensive immigration reform that has been put forward by the Obama administration is not "amnesty."
While Robertson doesn't actually quote much of anything from the interview, he nevertheless insisted that MSNBC had "no intention of portraying him in a positive light," adding that "rather than consider it an anti-amnesty organization, in predictable fashion [the interviewer] presented the group as 'racist' in motivation," citing claims from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In fact, the SPLC has documented how Beck has downplayed his work for John Tanton, a figure in the anti-immigration movement linked to white nationalists. The two are so closely linnked that Tanton has called Beck his "heir apparent." Robertson made no mention of Tanton in his blog post.
