The Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck spent an Oct. 20 post gushing over a pair of right-wingers spouting right-wing talking points:
CNN NewsNight has become the network’s Thunderdome with far-left host Abby Phillip and two or three liberal panelists squaring off with one or two actual, right-of-center conservatives for an entire hour. Given the fact that actual conservatives (or at least not Harris Republicans) are often brought in, it makes for compelling television.
Thursday night was the case with conservative populist strategist Ryan Girdusky and CNN political commentator Shermichael Singleton twice took Phillip and her merry band that included Brian Stelter to the cleaners over President Obama’s treatment of journalists and then the state of America’s infrastructure and schools outside elitist bubbles.
Note how Houck tagged Phillip with the extreme “far-left” label without evidence without evidence to justify it, while benignly claiming that Girdusky is merely a “conservative populist strategist.” He also claimed twice that Stelter “screeched” while cheering that Gidursky gave Trump’s extremist rantings a pass because, supposedly, he should be taken “figuratively instead of literally” even though no evidence was presented to back up that assumption. Houck further gushed that “Girdusky somehow drew more uproar from the triggered lefties when he asked whether Hillary Clinton ever ended up in jail”; he didn’t explain why Trump’s word should be taken on anything if he would refused to fulfill a promise he considered so important in 2016. Houck further touted Gidursy’s insult to Stelter: “After Girdusky twice shouted at Stelter that he’s ‘very privileged,’ Singleton uncorked at Stelter and told him to ‘get out of New York and talk to regular people.” Gidursky provided no evidence to back up his insult.
When Girdusky went even more extreme the following week, Houck was totally on board for his hate. From Houck’s Oct. 29 post:
On Monday, CNN NewsNight with far-left pundit Abby Phillip (who pretends to be a journalist) descended into chaos when our friend and conservative panelist Ryan Girdusky quipped to former Al Jazerra and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan that “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” in reference to the exploding beepers across Lebanon targeting members of Hezbollah.
Following an explosion of hurt feelings and pearl-clutching by Phillip, Hasan, and far-left commentator Ashley Allison, Phillip threw to a commercial break and, after returning, announced Girdusky was kicked off the panel for having “crossed” “a line” that was “not acceptable to me” in terms of fostering “civility.” CNN subsequently announced Girdusky was banned from the network.
Of course, there was way more to this, starting with the build-up.
[…]Hasan finally chimed in and argued the Madison Square Garden rally speakers would have destroyed past Republican presidential campaigns with heated controversy, but Trump has skated by. Hasan stirred the pot by comparing other speakers to Nazi leaders, including Joseph Goebbels and said they were, in fact “Nazis.”
Girdusky first clapped back that “[y]ou’re called an anti-Semite more than anyone in this table” given his virulently anti-Israel views and support for Palestinians.
Girdusky then dropped his little quip, which Hasan took to mean he should be killed on live TV: “Well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
The remaining few minutes of the block were in a perpetual state of cross-talk.
Houck went on to mock Phillip for being “shaken” by Girdusky’s vicious smear and “screeched” (and, no, he again failed to prove that she is “far-left”).
It appears that Houck and the MRC have become more approving of right-wing extremism and lies. Hilarously, they can’t take it when things go the other way. Jorge Bonilla huffed in a Nov. 1 post:
In a disgusting exchange on CNN NewsNight With Abby Phillip, disgraced former PBS host Tavis Smiley attributed JD Vance’s take on conservative men having more testosterone to “mommy issues”, as some in the panel laughed. It is interesting to see what passes for acceptable standards over at the former “world leader in news.”
Bonilla retorted by whining that “Earlier this week, CNN banned (now former) panelist Ryan Girdursky over the infamous ‘beeper joke,'” adding, “It is interesting to see what fosters civility and what does not, in the mind of Abby Phillip.” Of course, questions about “mommy issues” pale in comparison to smearing someone as a terrorist, and Bonilla didn’t explain why talking about that was somehow “disgusting” while Girdusky smearing Hasan as a terrorist somehow was not.
After referencing J.D. Vance’s mother, “who rehabilitated herself and has been drug-free for quite some time,” Bonilla concluded by huffing, “Is mocking drug addiction within CNN’s standards?” It very much is at the MRC, with writers repeatedly hyping “Hunter Biden’s epic crack-and-hookers binges,” and Houck himself raged that anyone could possibly be allowed to feel sympathy for Hunter over his addiction issues.
It is interesting to see what fosters civility and what does not, in the minds of Houck and Bonilla and their fellow hypocritical MRC co-workers.
UPDATE: Matthew Sheffield of Flux (and a former MRC employee) pointed out that Girdusky is a right-wing extremist with racist sympathies — so much for that “conservative populist strategist” whitewash — and is part of a strategy of media outlets to put right-wing bombthrowers on TV for attention instead of trying to foster civil conversations.