We’ve noted how Media Research Center executive Tim Graham wrote a column viciously smearing Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of “milking” his son’s suicide by writing about book about it and talking about it in relation to the Capitol riot, which took place a week after his son’s death. Graham, however, is committed to being a jerk and won’t apologize for the smear.
In his Jan. 7 podcast, Graham grumbled that Raskin’s book was selling well, then complained that “some people think it’s unfair for this column to be headlined ‘milking a suicide.'” He, of course, didn’t identify who those “some people” were — perhaps because one of them was not only a fellow conservative but a former MRC intern. He continued to double down:
People can have sympathy for the idea that your son died of suicide — that’s terrible. But when you write a book about it, you probably shouldn’t make it political. You should probably just say this was a terrible thing, I’ve learned from it and, you know, I’m moving and I think hat’s what my son would want — that would be fine. Even if you wrote a book about it, like oh, you know, call your suicide hotline. That’s not what this book is. This book is basically sort of suggesting that the Republicans are a threat to democracy and causing these suicides.
Graham sneered that Raskin was allegedly on TV so frequently talking about his book that he was “the [Michael] Avenatti of suicide memorists.” He then huffed:
I think it’s creepy, I think it’s gross, I think it’s something that should, you know, something that should be sort of disparaged. It’s distasteful. If you think I’m distasteful, well then, that’s the way it’s going to be. But let’s not say that partisans in politics don’t try to exploit death for political gain, because that’s what’s going on with Jan. 6! That’s what they would accuse us of, oh, you guys with your Benghazi-ghazi obsessions.
Yet we don’t see Graham actually admitting that Benghazi was all about exploiting deaths for political gain. Indeed, current House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy actually admitted that the Benghazi hearings were designed to drive down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.
Graham believes he should be above criticism — witness his failure to engage with his critics here — because as far as he’s concerned, he’s speaking truth. In reality, though, he’s spinning a narrative just as much as the so-called “liberal media” he accuses of doing. He would never criticize Fox News the way he criticizes CNN — because he thinks their right-wing bias is “fair and balanced.” His criticism is always in bad faith, and there’s no reason to assume otherwise.