Topic: Media Research Center
For all of its lecturing about non-right-wing media being insufficiently "family friendly" (for, among other things, acknowledging that LGBT people exist), the Media Research Center is no stranger to offensive vulgarity. Take, for example, a Dec. 17 post by Curtis Houck that currently carries the headline "Smug: CNN’s Avlon Says Trump Letter Will Cause Questions About His ‘Mental State’."
But as the item's URL makes clear, the word "smug" wasn't originally in that headline; it replaced the word "prick" -- which, as we all know, is a vulgarity to describe the penis.
While the headline on NewsBusters was changed, the reposting of Houck's item at MRCTV retains "prick."
The post itself offers no clue as to why Houck would desperately invoke such a tired vulgarity -- or why he apparently thought better of it and tried to change it -- but he was in full lecture mode, hurling every condescending descriptor he could think of at Avlon for daring to point out the unhinged nature of President Trump's letter to Nancy Pelosi:
Who died and made CNN senior political analyst/supercilious wingnut John Avlon the bearer of what’s right, wrong, partisan, and non-partisan? Well, apparently his smug, ruling class attitude and lectures to flyover country was on-brand for CNN and boss Jeffrey Zucker.
On Tuesday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, Avlon proclaimed that the President’s “embarrassing” letter responding to his impending impeachment would cause Republican Senators to raise questions about his “mental state.” Ah, so Avlon decided to play psychiatrist!
[...]
And for good measure, Avlon reveled in the claim by liberal media-pleasing Republicans Jeff Flake and Mike Murphy that between 30 or 35 Republicans would vote to impeach Trump if the process were done in secret. So, that shows you who Avlon thinks was an authoritative voice on the “right.”
He also lectured Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as disgraceful for refusing to hear more witnesses and information at the Senate trial, but thought differently in 1998. Avlon alluded to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s change from 1998 and 1999, but when you’re a hack like Avlon, liberal flips are minor inconveniences.
It's so entertaining when conervative activists like Houck attack liberals for having a "smug, ruling class attitude" -- as if his job at a prominent Washington political organization doesn't make him part of a certain "ruling class" or hasn't given him a attitude so smug that he feels entitled to hurl vulgar insults at those with whom he disagrees.
Since he is managing editor of NewsBusters, Houck presumably plays a role in setting the website's tone, so his superiors such as Brenet Bozell and Tim Graham apparently have no problem with the increasingly offensive direction that tone is taking. After all, he was managing editor for at least part of the time that Tom Blumer was inserting white nationalist links into his NewsBusters posts, and it was only when others caught the links that they were deleted and Blumer was fired -- with no apparent discipline handed out to anyone at the MRC who should have caught those offensive links beforehand and saved the organization from embarassment.
Houck's -- and the MRC's -- hatred and intolerance for media people who are not unquestionigly pro-Trump is becoming less veiled and more vicious. So pardon us if we think their concerns about "family-friendly" media ring more than a little hollow.
