The Media Research Center’s Scott Whitlock grumbles in an Aug. 15 post (boldface his):
Get it? The vile racists who promoted violence in Charlottesvile, Virginia over the weekend, groups that include the KKK and Nazis, are part of the “far right” and “hard line conservatives.” That’s according to the New York Times in a front page story on Tuesday. The paper used the phrase “far right” or “conservative” six times to connect racist thugs to the political right.
The headline trumpeted, “Far Right Plans Its Next Moves With a New Energy.” Writer Alan Feuer began, “The white supremacists and right-wing extremists who came together over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., are now headed home.” He later underlined, “The far right, which has returned to prominence in the past year or so, has always been an amalgam of factions and causes.”
First, Whitlock doesn’t explain why he’s defending the honor of the “far right” by trying to disassociate it from neo-Nazis. Despite his complaining, Whitlock offers no evidence that “racist thugs” are not on the far right.
Second, Whitlock seems to have forgotten that he works for an organization that uses the term “far left” even more indiscriminately than he’s accusing the Times of using “far right.” The MRC was quick to label violent Antifa protesters as “far left,” which by Whitlock’s standards equates them with, among others, Stephen Colbert and sports blog Deadspin.
The MRC is clearly never going to apologize for equating violent protesters with people and publications who merely said something it didn’t like. Therefore, it has no moral standing to complain when it thinks others are doing the same (though we still don’t understand why Whitlock is so desperate to claim that white supremacists are not “far right”).