We’ve documented how the context of one’s words matters at the Media Research Center only when those words are spoken by a conservative. The MRC’s Tim Graham manages to display that hypocrisy in the span of a day.
In a Sept. 4 NewsBusters post, Graham huffs that the Washington Post took remarks by a Republican politician out of context:
The Washington Post put conservative black minister E.W. Jackson on its front page again Wednesday, replaying its favorite “nutty” remarks. Reporter Laura Vozzella began: “Virginia Republicans have been keeping their distance from E.W. Jackson ever since the fiery minister, who has compared Planned Parenthood to the Klan and linked yoga to Satan, won the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.”
Vozzella and the Post could care less that Jackson said back in June “I do not believe that yoga leads to Satanism. One of my ministers is a yoga instructor.” It’s all about baking religious Republicans as fruitcakes.
Graham then quotes what Jackson actually said, and he did indeed link yoga to Satan. But he huffs further that the Post is “more interesting [sic] in mocking Christians than understanding their concerns.”
The next day, Graham was upset that anyone would dare put President Obama’s words in their proper context, complaining about the “strange media treatment of Obama’s strange denial that he’d ever set a ‘red line’ against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.” He then uncritically repeated an attack on PolitiFact for pointing out that Obama did not actually deny he said it but was emphasizing that the standard against use of chemical weapons was an international one dating back nearly a century, not an arbitrary one he made up on the spot.
Graham, by the way, is the MRC’s director of media analysis. This, apparently, is the kind of “analysis” that keeps him employed.