The Media Research Center’s meltdown over the selection of Bad Bunny as the entertainment for the upcoming Super Bowl continued with a Sept. 30 post by Jorge Bonilla:
We’re months away from Super Bowl LX and its Bad Bunny halftime performance but the legacy media are already in top sycophantic form, doing everything in their power to shove this awful pick down the throats of their viewing public. CBS Mornings Plus delivered on all counts.
Watch as Plus anchor Adriana Diaz sets up Lilia Luciano’s video package by obscuring objections to the performer choice:
[…]Of course, objections to Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl are NOT limited to his criticisms of President Donald Trump. There are objections based on lyrical content. There are those who object due to the fact that Bad Bunny’s bleatings are exclusively in Spanish, undergirded by Anti-American sentiment.
[…]Additionally, there are objections based on Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE hypocrisy. These objections are decidedly NOT limited to criticisms of Trump, as outlined by Diaz. This whole obscuring of opposition is an example of anti-news: wherein the people are given just enough information in a manner that leaves them feeling they’re fully informed on the matter when the exact opposite is true. Many such cases within the legacy media.
Many such cases exist in the right-wing media, but Bonilla won’t tell you that.
Bonilla used an Oct. 3 post to spin away the Trump White House’s suggestion that it will target allegedly illegal immigrants at the Super Bowl because of Bad Bunny’s performance:
Like watching a bad telenovela with its predictable, bad acting- so is watching the legacy media cover Bad Bunny’s much-hyped Super Bowl halftime show. In today’s episode of that bad soap opera, NBC Nightly News covers a throwaway line as if it were a major rift directly involving the President of the United States.
[…]The news division is doing its sports brethren a solid by trying to legitimize an unforced error by Bad Bunny, who infamously said that he didn’t want to do any U.S. dates on this world tour because of the fear of ICE raids. Of course, Bad Bunny would go on to reverse himself by accepting the Super Bowl invite, given that there are ongoing ICE actions in Santa Clara, California, where Super Bowl LX will be played.
[…]And OF COURSE ICE is going to be present at the Super Bowl. It is commonplace for DHS to have all hands on deck from ICE, HSI and ERO during a SEAR-1 level National Security Special Event- the highest level of security for such events. ICE had a large presence, for example, during Super Bowl LI in Houston. Lady Gaga was the halftime performer. Gutierrez downplayed ICE’s statement by barely mentioning it.
There is little interest in actual reporting here. The emphasis is on “flashpoints” and drama. Unfortunately, there are several months left to this telenovela.
Bonilla was curiously silent about what prompted this concern in the first place, even though it was in the transcript he copied-and-pasted: Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski specifically stating that “there is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to the people in this country. Not the Super Bowl, and nowhere else. We will find you.” Still, Bonilla insisted that directly quoting Lewandowski is somehow a “hoax.”
Alex Christy was in comedy-cop mode for a post the same day ranting that Jimmy Kimmel also called out Lewandowski’s statement:
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security has announced ICE will be at February’s Super Bowl. This may strike normal people as uncontroversial given its historical precedent and the amount of security needed for the Super Bowl, but for ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, ICE’s Super Bowl deployment allows it to do its number one job: tackle brown people.
Kimmel’s ramblings came against the backdrop of conservative reaction to Bad Bunny being named this season’s halftime performer, “Oh man, so much outrage. One of Trump’s top henchweasels, Homeland Security advisor Corey Lewandowski, is very angry at the NFL too. He said, ‘It’s shameful that they decided to pick someone who just seems to hate America so much.’”
[…]Kimmel then took on ICE itself, “So now, because this Bunny is so very bad, they are planning to have ICE agents present at the Super Bowl. I guess, there’s a reason. ICE heard there was a field where brown people get tackled and they’re like, ‘Hey, that’s our job.’”
ICE was present at the Super Bowl in February, under President Trump, and nobody thought that was a big deal because it wasn’t. But for liberals like Kimmel, who think history starts today, every normal thing the administration does must also be included on the list of evidence that states that the administration is racist and a threat to democracy.
If an ICE presence at the Super Bowl is “normal,” why did Lewandowski make a big deal about ICE being at Bad Bunny’s performance? Christy didn’t get into that.
Mark Finkelstein whined that that right-wingers’ “snowflakery” and “performative outrage” were called out on “Morning Joe” — then demonstrated exactly that by huffing that Bad Bunny is “an ardent Trump critic and endorser of Kamala Harris.” He then played whataboutism:
Speaking of “snowflakery” around pro football, it was Willie Geist & Co. who had a cow in 2018 over the NFL requiring players to stand for the national anthem or remain in the locker room. Eddie Glaude compared Trump to Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan. Standing for the national anthem should be an occasion to get together and unite.
If the NFL had wanted to keep the Super Bowl “free of politics,” it wouldn’t have invited hyper-political Bad Bunny to take center stage. But Willie [Geist] apparently believes that if the NFL decides to spit in the face of millions of Americans, they should just shut up and take it.
Steve Malzberg served up his own whining fit in an Oct. 4 post:
If you happened to be watching CNN News Central on Thursday afternoon, you may have seen co-host Boris Sanchez conducting a segment on the NFL’s choice of talent for next February’s Super Bowl LX halftime show. The controversial selection of Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper and singer, who has a history of hating Donald Trump and his immigration policies, has understandably resulted in much backlash, especially from the MAGA crowd.
According to Sanchez, Bad Bunny has said that he hasn’t toured in the United States recently, “Partly for fear that ICE would raid his concert venues.” Sanchez then played a clip of Corey Lewandowski, Chief Advisor to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, appearing on The Benny Show,addressing if ICE will be at the next Super Bowl. Noem said “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven for people who are in this country illegally, not the Super Bowl and nowhere else.”
[…]Unloading on Trump and ICE “transcends entertainment.” It’s serious stuff, and then Sanchez decided to leave no doubt about where he stands when it comes to Bad Bunny, and the excitement he is harboring over his upcoming Super Bowl appearance.
[…]Look, there is nothing wrong with Boris Sanchez being a fan of Bad Bunny, and if this segment was just strictly about what the Super Bowl show would be like, and what songs would be performed, it would be fine for Sanchez to tell us all how much he loves, and craves to see Bad Bunny do a song that he hasn’t heard him sing in three years.
But that’s not what the bulk of this interview was about. It was about the legitimacy of the NFL selecting Bad Bunny in the first place, and the ramifications of that choice on multiple levels, including the possible involvement of ICE agents at the Super Bowl, which is four months away. This issue will only get bigger and more heated. Then there’s the content of his lyrics. Will smutty raps in Spanish make the biggest TV show of the year?
As if right-wing radio host Malzberg is some kind of expert on Bad Bunny lyrics. And he and his fellow MRCers will guarantee this story will become “bigger and more heated” because that’s what they get paid to do.