The Media Research Center’s flip-flop rhetoric on who is allowed to criticize the Catholic Church and the pope (conservatives) and who isn’t (non-conservatives) has flipped again.
In their Oct. 7 column, Brent Bozell and Tim Graham sneered at Nancy Pelosi for allegedly expressing “smarter-than-the-pontiff feminist arrogance” for pointing out that, as a mother, she might know a little more about having children than a celibate priest.
As we’ve noted, conservative columnist George Will wasn’t attacked by Bozell and Co. for expressing “smarter-than-the-pontiff arrogance” by asserting that Pope Francis “stands against modernity, rationality, science and, ultimately, the spontaneous creativity of open societies” and that he embodies sanctity but comes trailing clouds of sanctimony,” offers “shrill” social diagnoses and “embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false and deeply reactionary.” Rather, the MRC made Will’s column an “Editor’s Pick” at NewsBusters.
The gist of Bozell and Graham’s column, though, is a defense of its CNSNews.com “reporter” Sam Dorman for asking a gotcha question of Pelosi. (The writers hide the fact that Dorman isn’t an actual reporter but just an intern.) They insist that Dorman’s question was “very simple and pertinent” and tout how Pelosi was made “clearly angry” by it.
Which, of course, was the whole point. Dorman said himself on a CNS website trying to profit off the confrontation how proud he was that “after Pelosi erupted with anger, I knew I had pushed the right button.” Why should Pelosi apologize over an act deliberately designed to provoke her anger?
Bozell and Graham conclude by declaring that Pelosi isn’t sufficiently Catholic, ranting, “She should be excommunicated.” Now who’s portraying themselves as smarter than the pope?