Topic: Media Research Center
Conservatives had a field day with a picture of President Obama saluting troops with a hand that also held a coffee cup. But when the media. But when some media outlets highlighted a photo of then-President George W. Bush saluting the troops while holding his dog, Kyle Drennen used a Sept. 24 Media Research Center item to cry foul:
Running defense for Barack Obama on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer touted "some of the President's defenders" pushing back against a video of the commander-in-chief sloppily saluting Marines while holding a coffee cup by "circulating this photo of George W. Bush during his presidency...saluting service members while holding his dog, Barney."
Lauer noted that despite Obama gaffe going viral on social media and "sarcastically being called the 'latte salute,'" it "didn't take long for that photo [of Bush] to come out as well."
The hosts of Today's 9 a.m. ET hour revisited the subject, with Tamron Hall declaring: "President George W. Bush saluted as well in a way that was seen as controversial. He was holding Barney, the dog, there." She observed: "So you have people who don't care for President Obama who say, 'This is so disrespectful!' The supporters of Obama then show the picture of Bush. And then it goes back and forth."
News anchor Natalie Morales chimed in to defend Obama: "He's got a lot – he's got ISIS to deal with, a lot on his mind. So, I – you know, there's a lot more – bigger concerns in the world and we're focusing on a cup of coffee."
Rather then just cover the incident as a gaffe for Obama, the NBC morning show sought to muddy the waters by seizing on a photo of Bush put out by liberal spin doctors and dismiss the whole thing as just another "back and forth" between political partisans.
Funny, we don't recall anyone at the MRC getting their knickers in a bunch when Bush did the same thing Obama did. That's not a distraction or "running defense" -- it's reporting facts.
Drennen's just upset that the media reported the truth, thus proving Stephen Colbert's adage that reality has a liberal bias to be correct yet again.
