The Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck served up a boatload of whataboutism in a Feb. 1 post:
Wednesday’s Good Morning America (GMA) showcased Disney’s ABC behaving like public relations associates for the left’s latest fad as they eagerly spent a full segment promoting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declaring war on Zyn nicotine pouches under the guise of being a threat to children. The problem? They ignored Schumer’s virulent support for legalizing marijuana as a new frontier of freedom.
Given the left’s penchant for celebrating pot, it wasn’t entirely surprising they only have an issue with nicotine, but not other, harder drugs.
“Nicotine pouches. The calls to crack down on kids using Zyn. Popularity soaring with ‘Zynfluencers’ on TikTok. And this morning the risks, especially for the nicotine naive,” warned co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos in a tease.
Notice how the problem isn’t Chinese-owned TikTok dumbing down society and large accounts drumming up and encouraging the use of Zyn, but instead, Zyn itself even though it’s something former smokers have turned to as an alternative as they look to quit.
Houck offered no evidence that TikTok itself is forcing any of its users to promote Zyn to teenagers — he would never blame Elon Musk for the prevalence of racism and anti-Semitism on Twitter/X. Further, even in the states where marijuana is legal, it’s much more highly regulated than nicotine packets, and there are already a firmly entrenched campaigns warning of the dangers of pot for teens.
This is all pretty thin gruel to base an attack on — reminiscent of the MRC’s former “news” division, CNSNews.com, repeatedly obsessing over Schumer’s gay daughter — but because Houck is not a terribly original thinker, he simply parroted what he saw on his favorite right-wing channel that he pretends isn’t right-wing:
In contrast, NewsNation and On Balance host Leland Vittert took Schumer to task on Tuesday for his hypocrisy of being a supporter of marijuana but not Zyn.
“Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats go all-in on legalize — you see, there we go — all in legalizing pot, but last week, they wanted to regulate Zyn nicotine patches. The class divide behind America’s elite love of pot. And love to hate nicotine,” he said the second of two teases.
Using a 2021 clip of Schumer touting marijuana legalization as pro-“freedom”, Vittert pointed out Schumer has less concern with something that “16 million people report being addicted among 52 million Americans 12 and older” who “say they’ve used marijuana in the past month” and “[n]early one-third of users say they can’t quit.”
Vittert noted that between findings such as this and the fact that extended use “has now been found to cause psychosis, especially in young adults,” there’s a “real problem” with the drug and “real questions…pro-pot folks don’t like talking about.”
The former Fox News correspondent went on to connect these problems that Schumer doesn’t seem to have a problem with to Zyn, which Schumer perceives as the real scourge[.] […]
Vittert wrapped with this zinger: “So, it’s like a lot of things these days where there’s a divide in America. Marijuana is the drug of the elite. Thus, pot shops all over Brooklyn and close to middle schools are just fine with Chuck Schumer.”
Houck refused to call out Vittert’s blatant partisan editorializing — he simply doesn’t believe there is such a thing as right-wing media bias, and Vittert’s “zingers” politically align with Houck’s employer. And nowhere did Houck prove his suggestion that Schumer ever advocated marijuana use by teenagers, nor did he note that Vittert ever proved it.
It is interesting, though, that Houck actually admitted that Vittert used to work for Fox News — even though that undermines his longtime denial of a right-wing bias at NewsNation.