Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade has continued to roll along as the MRC serves as the de facto rapid-response operation for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his presumed presidential campaign. Kevin Tober spent a Feb. 21 post freaking out because someone used DeSantis tobesmirch the entire state of Florida with a description the MRC would be embracing if DeSantis was a Democrat:
As much as they say otherwise, MSNBC was terrified of Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis becoming president because they know he's a real threat to their leftist agenda. To them, Trump was an easy punching bag for ratings. More proof of this came on Tuesday night's edition of The ReidOut when guest host Jason Johnson leveled another nasty attack on DeSantis, this time sliming the entire state of Florida and it’s people in the process.
The vile and bigoted attacks came when Johnson made his best case for why DeSantis was unelectable. "In my view, there are three states that you can't really run from if you're trying to win across America," Johnson proclaimed.
Continuing to illustrate his bizarre theory, Johnson explained: "You run from New York, you're too crazy, you're a liberal. You run from California, you're too crazy, you’re liberal, you’re trying to make sure I can’t get plastic straws. You run from Florida, it's all crystal meth and alligators. Right?"
Realizing how much he stepped in it, Johnson quickly backtracked and said he was just saying that's simply the reputation of Florida. "I mean that's what people think. I'm not saying that that's the case. I’m saying those are sort of the national reputations of those states," he said.
"So when you see Ron DeSantis running and claiming that he's going do for America what he's done in Florida, it seems like that’d be a problem," Johnson ended by saying.
So annoyed was the MRC by that description of Florida -- and so desperate was it to distance DeSantis from that reputation -- that Tim Graham spent his podcast the next day complaining about it, with Tober as his guest:
Ron DeSantis is Public Enemy #1 on the left-wing TV networks, as he stands falsely accused of ending the teaching of slavery. On The Reidout, MSNBC guest host Jason Johnson said DeSantis can't successfully run for president from Florida, which is seen as the state of "crystal meth and alligators."
Is someone confusing actual Florida with an episode of Miami Vice? Do Joy's guest hosts need to sound as crazy as Joy?
Graham returned for a Feb. 27 post whining about a bad review of DeSantis' new book:
The folks at The New York Times Book Review would like you to believe they are the nation's premier evaluators of books, fiction and nonfiction. But the evidence shows the Times evaluates political books with a reliably partisan rancor or rapture, depending on which party it is.
Take nonfiction book critic Jennifer Szalai's takedown of the new Ron DeSantis book The Courage to Be Free, headlined "Preaching Freedom, Ron DeSantis Leads By Cracking Down."
Szalai began by painting DeSantis as an insincere chameleon:
[...]
The review also mocked DeSantis for its lack of literary merit: "For the most part, The Courage to Be Free is courageously free of anything that resembles charisma, or a discernible sense of humor. While his first book was weird and esoteric enough to have obviously been written by a human, this one reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT."
This is a pattern at the eagerly partisan Times.
The eagerly partisan Graham offered no evidence to rebut the reviewer's take on the book.
There was plenty of lashing out at other criticism of DeSantis as well:
- CNN Falsely Claims DeSantis Isn’t a True Conservative, Haley Wants to Kill Entitlements
- Mitchell Offers Half-Hearted Correction On DeSantis, Slavery After MRC Report (Alex Christy offered no proof of a link between the two)
- NYT Swoons Over 'Normal' Republican Sununu as Not a DeSantis-Style Culture Warrior
- Joy Reid: DeSantis More Authoritarian Than Trump, Hates Civil Rights
- Telemundo’s 'The View' LIES About DeSantis’ Revocation of Disney’s Self-Rule (also in Spanish)
- MSNBC's Beschloss: 'Fascist' DeSantis a 'Local Mussolini in Florida'
- WashPost Tells MLB To Punish DeSantis, Yank Spring Training From Florida
- NASTY Reid Smears: 'If It Ain't White, It Ain't Right in DeSantistan'
- MSNBC Condemns 'Fascist' DeSantis As He Debunks Their Fake News
- MSNBC Compares Florida To Jim Crow To Urge MLB To Denounce DeSantis
- MSNBC Alleges DeSantis And Youngkin Seek To 'Demoralize' Black People
- MSNBC Vocab: Ron DeSantis Is a 'MAGA Extremist Bully,' a 'Fascist,' and a 'Richard'
- LOSING THEIR MINDS: Lefty Journos and Celebs Rage Against ‘Fascist’ ‘Hitler’ DeSantis
Even mocking obviously mockable things about DeSantis drew MRC disapproval. Mark Finkelstein huffed in a March 14 post:
MSNBC has been spewing red-hot hate of Ron DeSantis for years now. But it's gotten so silly that Joe Scarborough is now mocking the Florida governor for his throwing motion during a playing-catch interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade.
Scarborough squealed "wheee" no fewer 11 than times this morning during a long opening segment he devoted to mocking Ron DeSantis. He said it was worse given that he had been on the baseball team at Yale. Joe also mocked DeSantis as a "goober" for keeping his suit jacket on during the throwing session.
Super sports analyst Scarborough, playing both regular-speed and slo-mo clips slammed DeSantis's throwing motion. And each time Scarborough did so, he accompanied it with a long "whee."
Scarborough suggested that DeSantis' motion was all the worse given that he had been on the baseball team at Yale.
Finkelstein even defended DeSantis' throwing action, as someone who's doing rapid response and not "media research" would do:
Note: Rather than being whee-worthy, my analysis says that DeSantis was intentionally taking something off his throws. He appeared to be standing rather close to Kilmeade. And judging by Brian's throwing motion, he is not an accomplished ballplayer. DeSantis likely didn't want to embarrass Brian by whipping a ball at him that he couldn't handle.
Now, if you want to smirk at a truly whee-worthy throwing motion, here's then-President Obama throwing out a first pitch.
Of course Finkelstein found a way to play whataboutism.
