Craig Bannister solemnly intones in an Oct. 18 CNSNews.com blog post:
“So be it,” House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared regarding the possibility of her political opponents suffering “collateral damage.”
In an onstage interview with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Sunday, Rep. Pelosi took aim at “others who don’t share our view”:
“We owe the American people to be there for them, for their financial security, respecting the dignity and worth of every person in our country, and if there is some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view, well, so be it, but it shouldn’t be our original purpose.”
“We have to have total clarity about what we do, when it comes to everything,” Pelosi said, citing causes like abortion rights, gay marriage, immigration and gun control.
Bannister conveniently omits the context of Pelosi’s conversation with Krugman — probably because he wouldn’t have a blog post otherwise.
As Wonkette explains, Pelosi and Krugman were discussing climate change and its connection to job creation and prosperity, and Pelosi’s reference to “collateral damage” refers to those groups who would suffer as a result of efforts to try to stop global warming, i.e., oil companies.
Bannister also included a video of Pelosi’s remarks, which Wonkette identified as deceptively edited because it, like Bannister’s post, removes the context.
But reporting Pelosi’s remarks accurately and fully in context was apparently too much work for Bannister, who took the lazy way out and decided to smear her instead.
CNS has yet to fix Bannister’s misquoting of a reporter to justify President Trump’s insult of her, so don’t expect it to rush to fix this.