When Mike Johnson was named House speaker, the Media Research Center was annoyed that his right-wing extremism was accurately detailed in the media, from his porn “accountability” program he shares with his teenage son to the creepy “purity ball” he attended with his daughter. Clay Waters continued the outrage over accuracy in a Feb. 5 post complaining that Johnson’s Christian nationalism was discussed:
From Amanpour & Co. to the PBS NewsHour, public television is all over the threat of “Christian Nationalism” as the 2024 presidential campaign gathers steam. Thursday evening’s edition featured perhaps the most conservative-hostile reporter on News Hour‘s staff, White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez, to offer its trademark taxpayer-funded liberal alarmism regarding devout Trump supporters.
Anchor William Brangham set things up: “The phrase ‘white Christian nationalism’ has been in the headlines quite a bit recently, but what does it really mean?”
Barron-Lopez’s introduction to her featured expert Brad Onishi left nothing mysterious about his ideological bent.
[…]The focus fell on one Christian sect in particular, the New Apostolic Reformation, fairly obscure save for on the alarmist left-wing of America.
Rather than dispute the accuracy of anything that was said about Johnson — perhaps because he can’t — Waters chose to play whataboutism instead:
After trying to establish a third-hand connections between House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the January 6 rioters, Onishi tried more guilt by association, highlighting a flag that hangs outside Johnson’s office. (It’s quite a contrast with their softball treatment of House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries.)
[…]Barron-Lopez took Onishi’s paranoid style seriously and reached out to Johnson’s office, which responded, “The speaker has long appreciated the rich history of the flag. Any implication that the Speaker’s use of the flag is connected to the events of January 6 is wildly inaccurate.”
There’s quite a contrast regarding how “radical” forms of various religions and political leaders are treated on PBS. The Democratic Muslim mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, Abdullah Hahmoud, recently received a sympathetic News Hour interview over his snub of President Joe Biden over the president’s support for Israel over Hamas. There was no questioning or suspicions raised about radical Islamic pro-Hamas protests in his city, documented by the Wall Street Journal.
Waters refused to explain that the “appeal to heaven” flag outside Johnson’s office is, in fact, a symbol of Christian nationalism or that his dismissal of the New Apostolic Reformation as “fairly obscure” ignores the influence it has in the right-wing politics he’s trying to defend.