We’ve shown how the Media Research Center has hypocritically complained about Democrats taking part in Republican primaries to boost far-right candidates who might be easier to beat in November — though it had heartily endorsed Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos,” an effort in which Republicans meddled in Democratic primaries. The MRC’s whining on the subject has, unsurprisingly, continued. Kevin Tober hyped in a July 24 post:
On Sunday’s State of the Union on CNN, panelist Scott Jennings wiped the floor with the leftists he was debating during the panel segment of the show. Once the direction of the panel drifted toward how in many Republican primaries, voters have nominated what some claim are weak or radical candidates, Jennings turned it around on them and noted how the Democrat Party [sic] has been propping up these candidates.
“Let me just say. We’ve heard a lot of names here this morning. Cox, you brought up the Maryland guy, Lake, Arizona, Mastriano, Pennsylvania. What do all these people have in common?” Jennings asked rhetorically. “Trump is for them and the Democrat [sic] Governors Association has spent millions of dollars to get them their nominations. It is the height of cynicism and hypocrisy!”
Tim Graham, who did most of the earlier selective ranting about cross-party meddling, did more of it in a July 26 post:
On Monday night, Rachel Maddow fulsomely interviewed Josh Shapiro, the Democrat nominee in the governor’s race in Pennsylvania, about how his opponent Doug Mastriano is a dangerous, anti-democratic extremist, and never asked Shapiro why — if he was such a danger — Shapiro spent almost a million dollars trying to help him win the Republican nomination.
Shapiro spent $840,000 running ads calling Mastriano “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.” The ad went on to say that Mr. Mastriano “wants to end vote by mail. He led the fight to audit the 2020 election. If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.” Shapiro and the state Democratic Party sent out mailers boosting him.
It’s cynical, but MSNBC doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning. This, obviously, is the same tactic the Democrats attempted with Trump in 2016, only to see it backfire in their faces. But Maddow will play the game of pretending they had nothing to do with this!
[…]Shapiro ran an “Operation Chaos” in the race, spending money to make it possible that the “dangerous chaos” candidate won. And MSNBC is presenting this Fake News impression that he never wanted this to happen.
Graham didn’t explain that “Operation Chaos” started with right-wing icon Limbaugh — and that his employer loved it.
Tober returned for a July 31 post touting talking heads on ABC criticizing the idea:
On Sunday’s This Week on ABC, both co-moderator Jonathan Karl and his panelists on the “PowerHouse Roundtable” tore into the Democrat Party [sic] congressional campaign arm: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for running ads promoting Trump-backed candidates in GOP primaries. One panelist, USA Today Washington Bureau chief Susan Page declared it both “risky” and “hypocritical.”
Switching gears from an unrelated subject, Karl turned to the topic of the Democrats’ election meddling. He remarked: “Speaking of this question of credibility, I wanna Susan, get you to kinda help explain Democrats going in and putting millions of dollars in states, in races across the country to support candidates” that are like former President Donald Trump.
Turning to Page, Karl bemoaned how even liberal Never-Trump Republican Peter Meijer, who was one of the ten Republicans to vote for Trump’s second impeachment is being targeted by the DCCC.
In neither post did Tober mention the hypocrisy of being Republicans being outraged over this when they cheered Rush’s ‘Operation Chaos.”
Mark Finkelstein whined in an Aug. 7 post:
How all-in has Michael Steele gone for the Democrats? As his comments on Ali Velshi’s MSNBC show on Saturday demonstrated, the answer is, very all-in! Steele is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, turned Never Trumper, MSNBC analyst, and eventually, member of the disgraced Lincoln Project.
The subject was the efforts by Democrats to meddle in Republican primaries by promoting MAGA/Trump-supporters, whom the Dems assume would be easier to defeat in the general election with the latest example being Michigan’s third congressional district with Democrats pumping money in to promote John Gibbs, an ardent Trump supporter over incumbent Congressman Peter Meijer, who had voted to impeach the President in 2021.
[…]Not only did Steele support the Democrats’ intervention in the Republican primary, but he was also less-than-truthful in describing their efforts. Steele twice claimed that the Democrats had run “positive” ads for Gibbs.
Finkelstein also refused to mention “Operation Chaos.”