Blogging at NewsBusters, former Media Research Center intern Ryan Foley tries the ol’ whataboutism route in a May 16 post:
Opening Wednesday’s CNN Tonight, the horribly biased Don Lemon pondered: “Why this President loves to surround himself with strong men, with dictators?” Naturally, Lemon proceeded to criticize Trump for meeting with dictators, apparently forgetting that President Obama attended a baseball game with Cuban dictator Raul Castro while administration officials had numerous meetings with Iranians. Lemon went further by saying that President Trump wants to “follow their lead” by acting like a king.
While Obama did attend a baseball game with Castro — though some people were more upset that he did so in the wake of a terrorist attack in Europe — he also held a joint news conference in which Castro was allowed to be asked questions by the news media for the first time in, well, ever. Foley also offered no evidence that any Obama administration officials treated those Iranians with the same deference Trump has treated his right-wing strongman buddies.
And who are those right-wing strongmen that are Trump’s buddies, anyway? Foley mostly avoids them in his post. Two of them — Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Viktor Orban of Hungary — are two of the MRC’s favorite right-wing strongmen as well; its “news” division CNSNews.com just loves them.
Foley did complain that Lemon pointed out Trump said to Chinese president Xi Jinping, “you’re President for life and therefore, you’re king,” then sneered: “The far-left CNN host asserted that ‘it should be no surprise President Trump is behaving like a king.’ His evidence? Trump saying ‘I alone can fix it’ at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Big whoop.”