The Media Research Center continued its complaining that J.D. Vance’s smear about “childless cat ladies” was being called out with a July 30 post by Sarah Butler:
Politico’s White House bureau chief, Jonathan Lemire began the discussion by sharing a statistic from Pew Research “47 percent of childless adults under 50 say they aren’t planning on having any children.” He continued to state that many young people want to “focus on other things” or are concerned about the “costs associated with raising a child.”
Unsurprisingly, Lemire mentioned “Vance’s comments about childless Americans, childless cat ladies could be so politically damaging” to his career. Jong-Fast jumped in and quickly exclaimed – without evidence – that Vance’s comment had racial undertones:
Well so what’s interesting is this is this nativism that comes from an authoritarian playbook right that there – there need to be more white children, right? That’s the idea that there is – you know this is about great replacement theory racism, right? This is what this is.
Jong-Fast failed to recognize that Vance, who married Usha Chilukuri, is a father to three biracial kids.
Regardless, Jong-Fast went on to say that we shouldn’t “misunderstand him for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of you now racist thing.” She then called his words an “attack [on] people for not having children” which she found “cruel.”
Adding on to what was previously said, Deutsch shared “you know it’s just so interesting. We live in this new cycle of — of politicians people say stupid things and the parade moves on.” But he professed that “this JD Vance parade is not gonna move on” because “there is just something that hit a nerve with people.”
Deutsch concluded “As I said, and you used the word cruel, I used the word cruel, that I think Vance, I don’t know if Vance is here in the end. We will see.”
Butler then made it clear how closely aligned she and her employer are to the Republican campaign machine, cheering that “The X account of RNC Research posted a video of Jong-Fast’s comments and called her out for spreading lies.”
Tim Graham groused that Vance’s self-own was pointed out:
On the Monday PBS News Hour, NPR White House reporter and PBS pundit Tamara Keith ripped into Sen. J.D. Vance having a “really terrible, no-good week” as the pro-Biden media endlessly rehash his 2021 comments to Tucker Carlson.
Anchor Geoff Bennett began: “J.D. Vance is getting a lot of scrutiny now for his controversial comments about women without children. He called them childless cat ladies, said they’re miserable with their own lives….he has not disavowed the comments, and he said in a podcast just the other day that he stands by the substance of what he said. There are lots of Democrats now who are more than happy to target J.D. Vance.”
Graham then tried a bit of desperate spin: “You have to shake your head at ‘wow, Vance is so bad the pro-Kamala media is laser-focused on pro-Kamala messaging.’ The media love to think they allocate the ‘oxygen’ of political attention.”
Curtis Houck whined in a July 31 post that a reporter noted that Vance is “’drawing new scrutiny for referring to some Democrats without children as, ‘childless cat ladies,’ in 2021′ and played dumb in saying ‘a separate interview from 2020 is resurfacing’ instead of having the balls to tell viewers this was coordinated opposition research.” Um, isn’t Houck part of a coordinated anti-Harris oppo research operation? He has little room to complain.
The same day, Mark Finkelstein groused that people outside his right-wing bubble wouldn’t stop talking about Vance:
On Saturday, Hezbollah, an Iran-sponsored terrorist group, attacked a sports center in Golan, killing 12 children and teenagers. A few days later, an Israeli airstrike killed a top Hezbollah commander in retaliation.
Yesterday, another airstrike killed a senior leader of Hamas, another Iran-sponsored terrorist group. The bold strike took place in Iran’s capital of Tehran. The views of experts on the region are reflected in this Financial Times column: “The risk of all-out Middle East war is rising sharply.” CNN This Morning devoted a long opening segment to the ominous situation in the 6 am hour Wednesday.
Meanwhile, over on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Joe and Mika might be on vacation, but under the baton of Jonathan Lemire, that same crucial opening segment was all about “cat ladies,” “weird,” extolling the Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta, and reveling in a new swing-state poll showing things going the Democrats’ way.
Yes, the show eventually did get around to discussing the dire situation in the Middle East. But priorities, priorities! Boosting Kamala and dumping on Trump-Vance come first!
Morning Joe opened with a clip of Daily Show comedian Ronny Chieng mocking Vance’s cat ladies line that people without children are miserable. Hey, Chieng said, mimicking crying, they’ve got more disposable income, can afford to fly business class, and have sex lives!
Unaware of the irony, Lemire commented, “J.D. Vance’s childless cat lady comment continues to be a major story line in the presidential race.”
Uh, yeah, Jonathan: because people like you in the liberal media continue to pound it. You know, like, starting shows with it rather than prioritizing minor stories like the Middle East on the brink of possible conflagration!
[…]Lemire then returned to the cat lady theme, telling Katty Kay that Vance’s remark was “deeply offensive.” And, again displaying a certain cluelessness, Lemire expressed surprise that the cat lady issue is “really staying.” Again, Jonathan, because people like you won’t let it die,wringing every last bit out of it to trash Vance and boost Harris.
[…]Ex-Senator Claire McCaskill returned to the feline theme, saying that “Democrats are having fun, and it’s about joy, and opportunity, and freedom,” whereas those Republicans are about–you guessed it–“cat ladies.”
Brad Wilmouth kept up the whining that Vance’s words were being accurately quoted in an Aug. 3 post:
On Tuesday’s The Source, CNN host Kaitlan Collins continued the media’s hyping of J.D. Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comments by bringing on the GOP vice presidential candidate’s former roommate at Yale who is now a Democrat state legislator to trash him as coming from a “dark” and “creepy” place. This is the danger of a Republican going to Yale — most of your roommates are going to be leftists.
The CNN host introduced a clip of Vance from an interview on The Chris Buskirk Show a few years ago in which he argued that becoming a parent improves one’s character, and that people who are “sociopathic” are more likely to be without children, not that all childless people are sociopathic.
Bill D’Agostino served up a little whining with an Aug. 5 compilation clip:
Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance appears to have touched a nerve in the news media, because the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC are still obsessing over his 2021 comments about “childless cat ladies” with thinly-veiled rage.
Corporate journalists have a habit of discussing their own reporting as though they’re talking about the weather. Back during the Stormy Daniels saga in 2018, for example, hosts on CNN and MSNBC would routinely remark how, for some reason, the story just wouldn’t go away.
The same phenomenon is very much at play here. It’s been weeks now, and journalists still aren’t finished shrieking about the phrase “cat ladies.”
On August 2, for example, MSNBC host Joy Reid laughed that Vance was “trying to squirm out of the cat ladies thing.” And just this Monday, longtime Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson called Vance’s remarks “the gift that keeps on giving” for the Harris campaign.
Larry Elder tried to defend Vance in an Aug. 5 column by invoking his own childlessness:
The outrage was as intense as it was predictable. His comment became translated to: Vance has disdain for women without children; Vance believes childless women ought not hold office; and the only woman the “sexist” Vance does not hate is the one he married.
I do not have children, had a beloved cat named Cream Puff, and ran for governor and president. That people with children have more skin in the game is a common point of view held by my mother, my father, my two brothers and my pastor.
Not sure that was helpful. And, of course, he played whataboutism: “Here’s the game. Every news cycle spent on castigating Vance for his ‘childless cat ladies’ comment is one less news cycle spent on the outrageous radical beliefs of Vice President Kamala Harris,” adding: “Democrat [sic] politicians and their media sympathizers do not want you to ask whether you are better off now than three and a half years ago. They do not want you to ask whether Harris’ radical, redistribution-of-income beliefs will make you better off. They want you to ask whether you are a ‘childless cat lady.'” Elder, by contrast, does not want you to ask why Vance is such a nasty person to anyone who doesn’t think exactly like he does, raising questions about his temperament to be a top public official.