Who’s the journalist the Media Research Center hates the most this week? Christi Parsons. She’s the Chicago Tribune writer who made the mistake of congratulating President Obama on his re-election during a press conference last week.
In a Nov. 14 MRC item, Scott Whitlock called Parsons “a gushing fan” who “cooed to Obama that she had ‘never’ seen him ‘lose.'” On his weekly appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, MRC chief Brent Bozell sneered that “no one, but nobody seemed the least bit perturbed that she and [President Obama] are playing kissy-face in a press conference. Nobody was at all surprised by that. What does that tell you about our press corps?”
It’s rather hypocritical that Bozell and Co. are pretending this sort of thing has never happened before. Take, for instance, this November 4, 2004, press conference by George W. Bush, the first after his re-election:
THE PRESIDENT: Herman. I’m probably going to regret this. (Laughter.)
Q I don’t know if you had a chance to check, but I can report you did eke out a victory in Texas the other day.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir.
Q Congratulations. I’m interested in getting back to Steven — Stevenson’s question about unity. Clearly, you believe you have reached out and will continue to reach out. Do you believe the Democrats have made a sincere and sufficient effort to meet you somewhere halfway, and do you think now there’s more reason for them the do that in light of the election results?
Who is “Herman”? We don’t know. It appears that the MRC was so uninterested in his fanboy fawning that it didn’t bother to record the event for posterity.
Apparently, fanboy reporters are permitted at the MRC when they’re fawning over a Republican.
(h/t reader A.P.)