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Friday, December 30, 2022
The MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Stayed Busy This Year
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has been one of the right-wing media's biggest defenders of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, even when he does odious things like spending state money to fly migrants who weren't even in Florida to Martha's Vineyard and or making high-profile arrests of people (largely non-white ex-felons) on purported voting fraud charges (who then keep getting acquittedd). But it has defended DeSantis on smaller issues over the past year as well.

Margaret Buckley defended DeSantis in an Aug. 5 post over criticism from the folks on "Morning Joe" for suspending elected state prosecutor Andrew Warren for not kowtowing to DeSantis' anti-LGBTQ agenda:

Since Warren had “vowed” to not follow ethical laws that protect unborn children from being killed and protect confused and impressionable children from groomers, it is safe to say that DeSantis had good reasons for the suspension.

In reaction to separate clips of DeSantis and Warren giving their respective statements, Joe Scarborough exclaimed to his wife Brzezinski, “I mean Mika, Ron DeSantis is such a dope. He didn't even wait for any action to take place.”

Warren was even allegedly letting dangerous people back onto the streets, only God knew what they were capable of doing to innocent people.

Buckley attacked Warren again in an Aug. 9 post when "rogue attorney" Warren appeared on "Morning Joe":

Morning Joe tried to get viewers’ tears flowing for democracy on Tuesday by bringing on Florida state attorney, Democrat, and lefty-caterer Andrew Warren. Warren was recently suspended by Governor Ron DeSantis for refusing “to enforce Florida's 15-week ban on abortion and gender-affirming care.” Warren’s response? Acting like a free-speech martyr and calling DeSantis a “wannabe dictator,” and the MSNBC cast was fine with it.

[...]

So, Warren and the minority of people he is clearly kissing up to do not feel free, all because they cannot kill unborn children, or groom young and impressionable children by encouraging them to (seemingly) change their gender. 

Tim Graham spent an Aug. 11 post complaining about an Associated Press article citing right-wingers in general -- and DeSantis in particular for his "don't say gay" law, a term Graham hates -- for fueling a rise in anti-LGBTQ hate. An Aug. 15 post by Graham whined that DeSantis tweeting out an image of the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag as a license plate design was (not incorrectly) interpreted as an embrace of "a dangerous far-right extremist ideology" by NPR, serving up lame whataboutism in response:

How do you know the left-wing media is gunning for Ron DeSantis? When taxpayer-funded NPR suddenly finds the "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the Revolutionary War to be a "far-right" emblem of lies and violence.

[...]

This is a little funny, since NPR has an affinity for dangerous far-left extremist ideology. They favorably reviewed the book In Defense of Looting in 2020. Looting is a "powerful tool." NPR gets goosebumps over books about how leftist riots for racial "justice" should be called "rebellions," not riots, and should be considered a respectable form of activism.

Naturally, NPR turned to the left-wing "extremism experts," who claimed "most of the public"....thinks like NPR?

[...]

Biden won, and January 6 was awful, but smearing this Gadsden flag as associated with far-right kookery is nothing new. Liberal media stars also tried this tactic when it was a Tea Party favorite in the Obama years. Chris Matthews called it "McCarthyite," and also turned to the SPLC to decry this symbol. Juan Williams associated it with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Even porny Playboy got into the act as it ripped Glenn Beck.

Alex Christy used an Aug. 19 post to defend from CNN commentator Bakari Sellers a DeSantis-promoted law designed to censor certain discussions of race, particularly if they involve the right-wing buzzword of critical race theory:

Like abortion laws, it is clear media personalities commenting on these laws have not read them. There is nothing in the law that prohibits teachings of “racial discrimination, as well as topics relating to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in racial oppression.”

Sellers would argue that black people are treated differently in America, which is an argument that he would be allowed to present under the Florida law. He just couldn’t indoctrinate people by insisting it is true while ignoring Stewart’s point of view.

Actually, black people are treated differently in America.

In a  Sept. 22 post, Kevin Tober complained that "demonic" MSNBC host Joy Reid used the Martha's Vinehard flights "to harken back to when he informed high school students at a public event that they weren't required to wear masks as the same as "whipping up a mob at the University of Mississippi because James Meredith was coming and then cheering it on as four people are killed in that mob."(Needless to say, the MRC defended DeSantis over the mask incident.) Tober huffed in response: "Reid either doesn't know her history, or she's pretending that Republicans were for the evil racist violence that was so common in the old south during the early to mid-1960s. Regardless, any person with a firm grasp on reality knows Ron DeSantis doesn't support violence of any kind and is against racism."

Even book reviews were not exempt. Clay Waters complained in a Sept. 23 post that a review by Stephen King of a book that referenced a library's empty shelves lest people be exposed to "dangerous ideas" and added that "The Florida Parental Rights Bill, signed by Governor DeSantis in March of this year, is basically a free pass to text censorship." Waters huffed in response: "Wrong! It's age-inappropriate obscenity and sexual scenes, not 'dangerous ideas,' being 'censored' (as in, removed from school libraries)."

Jason Cohen spent a Sept. 29 post complaining that knee-jerk right-wing praise of DeSantis was being called as creepy and authoritarian-looking:

This is awfully unfair to the millions of Floridians and Americans who are proponents of DeSantis’s policies, which are less authoritariann than many leftwing governors’. Nobody wants to acknowledge backing a figure whose views are beyond the pale, according to the mainstream media.It naturally has a chilling effect on speech. (It also hands liberals some nasty surprises on election day, since voters won’t admit their preferences to pollsters.)

It also helps heighten the already terrible tension and tribalism setting up a false and divisive good vs. evil dichotomy. The media should be responsible enough to know better than to use such rhetoric. Criticizing politicians should be commonplace, but designating them as demons is disgraceful. “DeSatan” is literally trending on Twitter today.

Waters returned for a Sept. 30 post calling out DeSantis' hypocrisy in demanding federal hurricane relief while flouting federal COVID guidelines: "They decided to drag COVID into the act, foolishly, given DeSantis’s impressive record of reopening his state without the catastrophic consequences predicted by the Times and other liberals." Waters then added a bit of whataboutism: "Still the reporters kept itching for DeSantis to lunge at the Biden administration, while failing to mention the other side: At the height of the damage wrought by Hurricane Ian on Wednesday night, Biden attended a fundraiser to defeat Republican governors…like Ron DeSantis."

Curtis Houck used an Oct. 13 post to attack a CBS segment pointing out the right-wing obsession with labeling any critic as 'woke' and that 'a portion of the segment from socialist co-host Tony Dokoupil took aim at Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for what Dokoupil complained in a tease was 'say[ing] the word' work [sic] 'a lot.'" He added: "Dokoupil then teed off on DeSantis, lamenting that, 'in the battle to define America,' the Sunshine State leader 'has what amounts to his very own fight song,' 'a campaign ad inspired by Top Gun' and the word woke serving as the “one political target he seems to favor above all others.” Houck found none of that creepy and authoritarian, of course -- heck, he couldn't even be bothered to explain why he thinks Dokoupil is "socialist."


Posted by Terry K. at 8:34 PM EST

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