Topic: NewsBusters
Ken Shepherd declares in an Oct. 28 NewsBusters post that he's not that terribly bothered by the cyberbullying of Chrissy Teigen over an "anti-gun" tweet because, well, she's a model -- well, a "public figure" -- and kinda has it coming to her:
While ad hominem attacks, hateful comments, and threats of violence are unacceptable and worthy of condemnation, it seems a bit melodramatic to argue that Ms. Teigen, a very public figure, is a victim of cyberbullying. Teigen simply held forth on Twitter to make a political comment and got pushback for it. That is the nature of political discourse in social media, and far different from some anonymous kid in a high school somewhere in America being persistently and mercilessly harassed and bullied online by classmates.
Remember that Shepherd's Media Research Center collegaues were quite approving of Rush Limbaugh's three-day tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke. And his boss, Brent Bozell, expressed only the most tepid criticism of Limbaugh before starting an "I Stand With Rush" website. (The MRC did give Limbaugh its very first "William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence," after all.)
So he knows how acceptable ad hominem attacks, hateful comments, and threats of violence are without having to leave his place of employment. Indeed, his employer considers such attacks to be "media excellence," so maybe he's not the best judge of who deserves to be bullied.
Curiously, Shepherd was silent about the content of her supposedly "anti-gun" tweet, which simply stated, "active shooting in Canada, or as we call it in america, wednesday."
Shepherd concludes by huffing: "Of course, if this is the standard MSNBC wishes to have, we eagerly await its complaints of cyberbullying the next time a conservative celebrity receives wave after wave of social media vitriol for expressing an opinion that is anathema to the Left." Somehow, Meanwhile, a non-conservative who ran afoul of the right's PC police deserves what they have coming to them.
Just ask Sandra Fluke.
