The Media Research Center continued to denigrate Rob Reiner for the offense of speaking out. Christian Toto gushed over right-winger Adam Carolla’s trashing of Reiner in a January 2023 post:
Adam Carolla had so much fun playing an August clip from “Real Time with Bill Maher” last year he played it again this week.
Why?
The snippet speaks volumes about where America is in the new year, divided by a media that keeps critical stories from half the country.
Carolla and longtime “Loveline” partner Dr. Drew Pinsky brought up the dearth of truth in society on the latest edition of “The Adam and Dr. Drew Show.” They mentioned the Russian collusion hoax and how Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, claimed it was real month after month, year after year, despite having access to more raw intelligence than the average citizen.
“Did he actually think Trump was a catspaw for the Kremlin?” Carolla asked. “It’s impossible to think that, given the information that he had.”
“I think Rob Reiner believed it,” Dr. Pinsky said.
‘”Rob Reiner is a useful idiot,” Carolla said of the legendary director. “You see him interviewed on [‘Real Time with Bill Maher’]. He watches CNN all day.”
The term “useful idiot,” according to Merriam-Webster, is, “a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda.”
The duo then cued up the Reiner/Maher clip in question, noting how many lies Reiner spews in just a short span. The director claimed President Trump personally led an armed insurrection on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
[…]“I think [Rob Reiner] is a talented guy, but he’s a dope. And the reason he’s a dope is because he’s forced it on himself,” Carolla said, noting how Reiner likely restricts his news access to MSNBC-like outlets with one news narrative.
“You’ve made yourself a dope by taking the spoon fed s*** that you’re only getting from the White House and CNN,” he said. “It’s not that Rob Reiner doesn’t have the intellectual firepower to be able to do this, he’s forced himself into being a dope by only getting information from one side.”
This from the wannabe movie critic who gets information from one side (which he is well-paid to never question). Surprisingly, Toto did not reach for the “Meathead” trope, instead more accurately described Reiner as ” the director behind ‘Misery,’ ‘The Princess Bride’ and ‘Stand By Me.'”
Brad Wilmouth groused in an October 2024 post:
On Monday’s The Beat, MSNBC host Ari Melber gave a forum to liberal celebrities Rob Reiner and W. Kamau Bell to blame racism and sexism because Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris isn’t way ahead of Donald Trump in the polls.
Filmmaker Reiner was taken aback and compared the U.S. to an “insane asylum” and “Crazyville” as he summed up the situation:
[…]After noting that former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are both voting for Harris, he added: “I mean, we’re in Crazyville here. And the fact that it’s that close is scary. It’s really scary.”
Wilmouth didn’t rebut anything Reiner said.
That same month, Geoffrey Dickens featured Reiner in his list of “All-Time WORST Celebrity Tirades Against Donald Trump.” A week later, Reiner popped up in another list by Dickens, this time purportedly about “closing arguments” from non-right-wingers.
Reiner even got name-checked in a rant against funding for public media in a Feb. 25 post by Tim Graham touting his new billboard truck: “Let George Soros and Rob Reiner and the like fund PBS and NPR. If the government were shoveling money to Fox News, you know the left would say it was unfair to them.” And if that were the case, Graham would be at the front of the line defending it.
This was all before Reiner and his wife were murdered in their home, apparently by their son. How did the MRC take this news? Did it continue to call him “Meathead”? Stay tuned.