The Obama Media’s Dishonest Attempt To Smear Rush Limbaugh

Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director said that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization.  Apparently, in order to BE a “legitimate” news organization, a media outlet must engage in leftwing propaganda, demagoguery and lies.

Anita Dunn went on to say:

“They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”

The news organization that determined itself to fact check an SNL sketch critical of Barack Obama – after having done absolutely nothing to verify the accuracy of weekly withering attacks on Sarah Palin throughout the presidential campaign that went on and on for months – is what passes for “legitimate” today.

And, it turns out, reporting flat-out lies and character assassinations against a conservative without bothering to perform even the most rudimentary check of the sources is what passes for “legitimate” today.  Amazingly, the network that “fact-checked” an SNL comedy sketch refused to engage in the most rudimentary of fact checking before smearing Rush Limbaugh.

Stop and consider: only days after looking like the in-the-Obama-tank-propagandists they truly are for “fact-checking” Saturday Night Live, and the VERY NEXT DAY following Obama’s White House Communications Director demonizing Fox News and holding up CNN as the model of legitimate journalism, CNN YET AGAIN proved how biased and in fact dishonest it truly is.

CNN joined MSNBC in “quoting” Rush Limbaugh to effect that he is a racist.  And as a result of these “bigoted remarks,” Rush Limbaugh was thrown out of an ownership package to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez did the following:

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez read a disputed racist quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh about antebellum slavery on Monday’s Newsroom: “Limbaugh’s perceived racist diatribes are too many to name. Here’s a sample- he once declared that ‘slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.’”

And that certainly wasn’t all that Rick Sanchez said.  Go to the link for more, and for the embedded video of the “reporting.”

Now, Rick Sanchez is a very different creature than, let’s say, Glenn Beck.  Rick Sanchez is paid to be a journalist, and in fact a NEWS ANCHOR.  Fox News’ Glenn Beck, by stark contrast, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Fox News’ news division.  He offers OPINION and analysis.  There’s a fundamental difference.  News anchors are supposed to report the facts, and ONLY the facts.  Fox News distinctly separates their journalists from their commentators.  Few other networks bother.

But that’s not all.  I mean, think about it.  Sanchez all but labels Rush Limbaugh as a racist, and says Limbaugh’s “perceived racist diatribes are too many to name.”  And as PROOF of that claim, he then proceeds to offer unsubstantiated LIES as his “evidence.”

Here are a couple of other “statements” by Rush Limbaugh and their “source” which were uncritically offered by Obama’s “legitimate news networks” as fact:

Here are two quotes attributed to Limbaugh in a 2006 book, 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America, by Jack Huberman.

• “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray (Dr. King’s assassin). We miss you, James. Godspeed.”
• “Let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

Well, it turns out that Huberman’s “source” was a Wikiquote that appeared, and then was later removed.  Rush Limbaugh has decades of audio available, and he has never said these things.

Such was the “reporting” of the mainstream media.  So much for their “legitimacy.”

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued the following statement:

“CNN and MSNBC must immediately and publicly source when Limbaugh uttered this phrase. He has unequivocally denied it. Now it is up to the same news media that reported it as fact to prove that it was, indeed, stated. […]

“Either Rush Limbaugh is lying or these networks – willfully or not – are participants in the worst form of character assassination imaginable.   They can prove their innocence by documenting this accusation. If they can’t, then they are 100% guilty of character assassination.

And what was the conclusion of this false and malicious reporting, in what amounted to an obvious act of character assassination?

First MSNBC ‘fessed up with a non-apology:

DAVID SHUSTER: And Tamron, speaking of influence, we do have an update involving talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the controversy over his effort to help buy an NFL football team. Limbaugh denies he said quote, ‘slavery has its merits,’ it was a quote that appeared on MSNBC this past Monday and Tuesday. MSNBC attributed that quote to a football player who was opposed to Limbaugh’s NFL bid. However, we have been unable to verify that quote independently. So, just to clarify.

Then Rick Sanchez of CNN offered a similar non-apology apology:

Earlier this week we provided quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh to illustrate why some people and players felt that Limbaugh was too divisive to be an NFL owner.

One of these quotes, which was in a column in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and in a book largely about conservatives, was refuted by Limbaugh. We have been unable to independently confirm that quote.

We should not have reported it and for that, I apologize. I feel it is important to hold folks accountable when they make mistakes, and that should include myself and my team.

Sorry we tried to destroy you.  Our mistake.  And we can assure you that it won’t happen again until next time.  The tone of the “apologies” was that the networks were trying to illustrate something that they wanted you to continue to think was still true, but due to some minor glitch they merely happened to use false facts to prove it.

Virtually everything they reported were lies.

There’s a little more to say.  Newsbusters reported this:

During Wednesday’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough warned of false Limbaugh quotes being touted by his own network: “And a lot of those comments were actually not true.  The quotes that we heard the most of, the people we interviewed on our shows came with articles, waving articles with quotes – completely made up.  And Mike Barnicle, the dangerous thing is, that the media just flew right into it.”

So the media outlet that features Keith Olbermann and the media outlet that fact checks SNL sketches for one political party “just flew into” a demagogic propaganda campaign that was literally right of of the Coach Joseph Goebbels playbook.

And those are the “legitimate” networks for Barack Hussein Obama, a man who has taken his own cues right out of the Nixonian “enemies list” to attack and damage a privately owned company and a member of the press that has constitutional rights.  Rather than respect those rights, the Obama White House has used taxpayer dollars to attack a major news organization.

I can’t end this without pointing out that it is a fact that Barack Obama’s Communications Director is a self-acknowledged Marxist.  And Marxists have never once in history been kind to a free and fair press.

I also can’t end it without saying that if you want to see what documented racism and bigotry that ought to be exposed really looks like, you should go to Barack Obama’s own official website.  Big Government – the people who exposed ACORN for the slime they are – provided the evidence that Obama’s people are antisemitic bigoted haters.  Whereas Rush Limbaugh’s “bigotry” is a media-created lie, the liberals’ racism is very real, indeed.

Tags: 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America, Anita Dunn, bigoted, Brent Bozell, CNN, CNN anchor, communications director, David Shuster, demagoguery, enemies list, fact check, Fox News, Jack Huberman, mainstream media, Marxist, Nixon, Obama, propaganda, quotes, racist, Rick Sanchez, Rush Limbaugh, Scarborough, slavery built the south, SNL sketch, St. Louis Rams, streets were safer after dark, White House