Ken Shepherd claims in a Feb. 12 NewsBusters post that Ben Carson has been criticized by “the media” because he “dared to ‘disrespect’ the president by offering policy proposals that deviated from the government-centered ones of Mr. Obama’s liking.”
Well, no. He has been criticized for using the National Prayer Breakfast — which is supposed to be a nonpartisan event — to issue a political attack on Obama’s policies.
And you don’t have to be a non-conservative to feel this way. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas has written that Carson should apologize to Obama:
I am no fan of the president’s policies, but the National Prayer Breakfast is billed as one of the few nonpolitical events in a very political city. Each year, the co-chairs, one Democrat and one Republican from either the House or Senate, put aside their political differences, as they do in weekly gatherings, to pray for the nation’s leaders.
[…]His remarks were inappropriate for the occasion. It would have been just as inappropriate had he praised the president’s policies. The president had a right to expect a different message about another Kingdom.
NewsBusters publishes Thomas’ column. What are the odds it’ll publish this one?
If it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be the first time: NewsBusters and its Media Research Center stayed silent about Thomas’ slur of Rachel Maddow, and NewsBusters declined to publish the column in which Thomas apologized.