Meet the insufferable Chuck Todd
If you're a news junkie like me, you may have the misfortune of watching Meet the Press on Sunday mornings. Once a beacon of journalistic integrity, Meet the Press has devolved into a mouthpiece for the left and the Democratic Party, with NBC News's political director Chuck Todd at the helm.
Like his predecessor David Gregory, Chuck Todd is a doctrinaire liberal arrogant enough to believe that he can persuade Americans that he's nonpartisan and brazen enough to repeatedly engage in journalistic malpractice in order to portray conservatives and Republicans as outside the mainstream and otherwise nefarious.
This past Sunday's broadcast was a case study in how the left-wing news media distorts the truth to advance an anti-Republican narrative.
Most of the show focused on smearing Republican candidates as "Islamophobes" who use the "politics of fear" to win votes.
Ascribing the "politics of fear" exclusively to Republicans is a favorite liberal media tactic. You'll never hear a reporter charge Democrats with using the "politics of fear" when Democrats tell Americans that if we don't shut down coal plants and dramatically cut CO2 emissions, the planet will disintegrate because of global warming, or when Democrats make ads starring a Paul Ryan lookalike literally rolling a wheelchair-bound grandma off a cliff to suggest that Republicans are heartless.
The truth is that virtually every left-wing talking point is grounded in fear – from 'Mediscare' to global warming to welfare reform. But don't expect the news media to frame the "politics of fear" in the context of left-wing attacks on conservatives.
No, they're fanatically committed to accusing Republicans who are asking legitimate questions about the U.S.'s anti-terrorism policies, refugee policies, and overall national security strategy in the face of a barbaric death cult conquering cities and carrying out attacks against the West of using the "politics of fear."
And so, against the backdrop of this partisan narrative, Chuck Todd and his panel of left-leaning reporters, an anti-Islamophobia activist and Washington Post columnist Kathleen Turner, whom the establishment press laughably bills as a conservative, excoriated Republicans.
The most egregious moment came when Chuck Todd played a clip of Senator Ted Cruz going on the offensive against Obama:
CHUCK TODD:
There's something that Ted Cruz said this week, I want to play it really quickly because I was just astonished by it, let me play this clip.
(BEGIN TAPE)
SEN. TED CRUZ
Mr. President, if you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries, but I would encourage you Mr. President, come back and insult me to my face.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
Kathleen, can you imagine if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in '07 said that? President Bush was really unpopular in the Democratic Primary, just like Barack Obama's really unpopular in the Republican Primary. There's a line here, though, did he cross one?
The first thing to note about this exchange is that Chuck Todd provided no context for Ted Cruz's statement. None whatsoever. He just played the clip, feigned "astonishment," and invited Kathleen Parker to bash Ted Cruz.
What Chuck Todd deliberately chose not to disclose is that Senator Cruz was responding to Obama's despicable smear of Republicans who have logical concerns about the vetting infrastructure for Syrian refugees as being the most "potent recruitment tool for ISIL."
Senator Cruz had every right to use harsh rhetoric to rebuff Obama's vitriolic attack against millions of Americans and their representatives who are demanding additional scrutiny of the Obama administration's refugee policy, especially in light of the administration's demonstrably failed ISIS policy.
But even if you're a liberal who hates Ted Cruz and thinks he went too far, as a journalist, Chuck Todd has a responsibility to contextualize why Ted Cruz said what he said. Not doing so is a shameful and willful disregard for journalistic ethics. The only plausible explanation for why Chuck Todd refused to provide context is that he sought to shield President Obama from criticism while making it easier to demonize Republicans.
The real story is that President Obama went oversees a couple of days after the Paris attacks and accused his domestic political opponents of being ISIS's main enablers. It was a disgraceful and vicious attack. Not only did Chuck Todd not have the intellectual courage to ask if President Obama went too far, but he didn't even deign to mention what Ted Cruz was responding to.
Todd's assertion that he could not imagine Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton using similar rhetoric vis-à-vis George Bush is equally mendacious, and belied by the unhinged hatred the left directed at George Bush throughout his presidency, including Obama calling Bush "unpatriotic."
And so, once again, Chuck Todd shows that he is not interested in reporting the unfiltered truth, nor is he interested in honestly and fairly framing our nation's political battles. Rather, Chuck Todd is the quintessential left-wing partisan posing as a journalist, who's willing to commit blatant journalistic malfeasance in order to further the left's agenda.
Eugene Slaven is a fundraising and marketing writer, and the author of the comedy novel A Life of Misery and Triumph. Follow Eugene on Twitter @eslaven, LinkedIn, and Facebook.