When Catholic bishop Daniel Jenky went Godwin and claimed that President Obama “seems intent on following a similar path” as Hitler and Stalin, certain parts of the ConWeb unsurprisingly approved — particularly the Media Research Center.
In an April 17 CNS blog post, Craig Bannister uncritically repeated Jenky’s attack, demonstrating his ignorance in the process by transcribing Jenky’s reference to a “Kulturkampf” as “Kultur Kamp.”
In an April 19 NewsBusters post, Scott Whitlock bashed MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for having “piously proclaimed that liberals would never compare a conservative to a dictator such as Joseph Stalin,” then complained that “MSNBC host Martin Bashir outrageously linked Rick Santorum to genocidal murderer Joseph Stalin.” Whitlock didn’t even mention Jenky’s attack, let alone explain how it, unlike Bashir’s remark, is some not “outrageous.”
In an April 20 NewsBusters post, Tim Graham snarked that Jenky had “the utter gall and audacity to make comparisons between that secular saint President Obama and church-oppressing dictators like Hitler and Stalin.” Graham declared that “You can’t be ‘oppressed’ in America by the Catholic Church,” though he didn’t offer any evidence of how anything Obama is purportedly doing equals Stalin-esque “oppression.” Graham also mentioned Bashir’s remarks without explaining why the two should be treated differently.
Meanwhile, at Accuracy in Media, Cliff Kincaid devoted a column to praising the attack, declaring that Janky is “an educated Catholic Bishop with knowledge of history and a commitment to religious freedom” who, thus, knows what he’s talking about and should have some immunity for issuing such a rank insult:
It will be interesting to see whether the national media cover these sensational charges in a fair and balanced manner. Or will “the malice of the media,” to use the Bishop’s words, take over?
What is “fair and balanced” about likening someone to Hitler and Stalin? Kincaid doesn’t explain.