Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the days leading up to Ketenji Brown Jackson pushing right-wing narratives about her purported radicalness and false claims about "leniency with pedos." Curtis Houck continued that whining, complaining that Jackson's nomination was being described as "historic" and pretended that Republican Sen. Josh Hawley's attacks on sentencing record hadn't been so discredited that even right-wing legal analyst Andrew McCarthy of the conservative National Review denounced it as "meritless to the point of demagoguery":
Monday morning, prior to the start of Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, ABC, CBS, and NBC shoveled White House talking points that reveled over Jackson’s “historic nomination” and the “legal and political gauntlet” ahead and fretted Republicans are ready to “attack” with “fireworks” that could trigger “a political bounce” for President Biden.
[...]
On the facts raised by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) about her leniency concerning convicted child sex predators, Haake boasted before a clip of Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) saying Republicans are incapable of “empathy”: “Judge Jackson’s allies disputing those claims in what could be a preview of contentious hearing days to come.”
[...]
Going lastly to superficial Good Morning America on ABC, co-host T.J. Holmes swooned over “the historic hearings” as well as “a new Monmouth University just out suggest[ing] Americans back her appointment by a two-to-one margin.”
Of course, one would wonder what her name ID actually is and if things would change once voters were made more aware of her record besides the president that picked her and her skin color.
Nicholas Fondacaro similarly ignored that Hawley's attack had been discredited as he attacked people on TV who pointed that out:
Monday was the first day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings and she’s expected to be grilled by Republican lawmakers on her record. With that on their minds, CNN journalists and analysts on At This Hour rushed to defend Jackson from accusations that she’s lenient with sex offenders and child porn peddlers given some of her rulings. They even lashed out at Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), calling his scrutiny on her record “extreme” and “toxic.”
“And [Senator] Dick Durbin [D-IL] already alluded to this when he said earlier, ‘these baseless charges aren't fair,” host Kate Bolduan proclaimed before she even addressed what the charges were. “Durbin's likely specifically talking about some of what's been lined up as a line of attack coming from Republicans like Senator Josh Hawley.”
After playing a short clip of Hawley on Fox News speaking about the allegations, Bolduan asserted, without evidence, that “his assessment’s been fact-checked, found to lack significant content at the very least.”
Fondacaro then unironically quoted Hawley's press secretary defending Hawley, demonstrating how much of a slave he is to right-wing talking points.
Kyle Drennen ranted about "swooning coverage" of Jackson's first day at the hearing and pushed thte narrative that TV networks "went to work hailing her performance and preemptively declaring her immune from any Republican criticism." Houck followed up by getting mad that a reporter dared to qeustion Hawley about his smears, which he of course framed as as a victory for Hawley:
Monday afternoon, during a break in the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, ABC congressional correspondent Rachel Scott embarrassed herself in having tried to corner Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) over concerns with Jackson’s light sentencing for child sex predators. Repeatedly, Hawley called her out for “gotcha” questions using “White House talking points,” rendering her speechless.
It’s doubtful ABC and Scott would air this smackdown in full, so Hawley’s staff published audio of the back-and-forth on his Senate Twitter account in a move that harkened back to the Trump White House taping President Trump’s 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl.
The recording began with Scott asking Hawley: “You mostly voted for judges that were light on child porn offenders. So isn’t that a double standard?”
Hawley snuffed out the trap: “Not for this court I haven’t. Not for the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Kevin Tober grumbled that "all three networks hyped her qualifications and background, not all gave equal time for Republican criticism," insisting that said criticism was "substantive" but mentioning only Hawley's discredited "pedo" attack. Tober also claimed that "MSNBC's The 11th Hour host Stephanie Ruhle was clearly frustrated by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) broadcasting his questions Jackson regarding her history of giving those convicted of viewing or distributing child porn light sentences" and that she called it "dangerous" and "character assassination,"going on to grumble that Ruhle's guest was "proclaiming, without evidence, that Republican objections to Jackson's nomination are 'not about her, it’s about this larger, political fight, and I think, the less we play into their narrative, the better it will be.'" Tober provided no evidence that it wasn't.
Alex Christy, meanwhile, had a fit over late-night jokes about GOP treatment of Jackson:
ABC's left-wing late night host and alleged comedian Jimmy Kimmel tried his hand at Supreme Court analysis on his Monday show and failed miserably as he accused Republicans of treating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings as a “subtle racism jamboree.” He then declared the prospect of her being approved to the high court by a party-line vote in the Senate to be the GOP's “ultimate nightmare.”
[...]
Wrapping up his thoughts on Jackson, Kimmel proclaimed: “She could get confirmed without a single, she doesn’t need any Republican votes to get confirmed because the vice president is the tie breaker. Which would be, that would be the GOP's ultimate nightmare having this decided by two black women whose names they can't pronounce.”
Somebody certainly seems to be obsessed with race, but it sure isn’t Senate Republicans.
Democrats aren't the ones who attacked Biden for simply vowing to appoint a black woman, Alex.
Meanwhile, the MRC continued to push its tired performative outrage that the media won't hate Jackson the way Republicans do:
- ‘History on the Horizon’; Nets Get Syrupy Over ‘Emotion’ at Jackson Hearings
- CNN's Coates Gushes Over Jackson, Accuses GOP of Trying to Educate Her
- NBC Gushes Over Jackson Being ‘Like An Olympic Athlete’
- MSNBC: Judge Jackson is Victim of 'Racism & Sexism' in Senate Hearings
- CBS Absurdly Claims Jackson ‘Almost Sounded Like A Conservative’
When Jackson testified that she looked at the circumstances of each individual case and took victims into consideration while pointing out that judges are not mandated to impose the greatest possible sentence, Fondacaro somehow interpreted this as her saying she was "loosening the sentences for those with less child porn because there were some with more of it," which he insisted was a "questionable argument" and then complained that the hosts of "The View" called this very routine sentencing review "very normal."
Tober returned to lash out at MSNBC's Joy Reid for criticizing Republicans as harshly as they had been criticizing Jackson:
When the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown's nomination to the Supreme Court wrapped up Tuesday, MSNBC's Joy Reid only had five minutes left of her show, The ReidOut, to squeeze in as much venom and hatred against Republicans as she could. To her credit, she was successful. In the five minutes she had to react to Tuesday's hearings she managed to call Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) "thuggish" multiple times and accused Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) of never attending law school classes at Harvard.
[...]
She then turned her rage against Senator Cruz "supposedly, Ted Cruz went to law school, apparently, only Ketanji Brown-Jackson was in class and he was probably skipping classes and sleeping because he doesn't know what critical race theory is."
Reid didn't stop with Cruz. She then melted down over Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioning Jackson over her sympathy for pedophiles, before turning her rage against all the GOP Senators who dared to ask tough questions of Jackson:
When Reid stated that Brett Kavanaugh was "accused, credibly, of rape," Tober raged:
Of course, it's a complete bald-faced lie to say Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was credibly accused of rape. Reid was clearly chomping at the bit to get on the air and go ballistic on Republican Senators who wanted to use their constitutional duties to question a Supreme Court nominee. She knows she has no intellectual response to Justice Jackson's comments sympathizing with pedophiles so she had to lash out and lie about Justice Kavanaugh.
Because Tober had no intellectual response to what Jackson actually did and said, he chose to smear her as "sympathizing with pedophiles." At no point did Tober or anyone else at the MRC address how Hawley's "pedo" attack on Jackson had been discredited.
