State Department Asks Anti-Tea Party NYT Reporter to Brief Foreign Press on Movement
When seeking political neutrality in a discussion of the Tea Party movement, it's probably best to avoid including - let alone promoting - a reporter who consistently suggests that racism undergirds the movement.
But that is exactly what the State Department did in selecting New York Times reporter Kate Zernike to brief foreign journalists on the Tea Party last Friday.
This is the same Kate Zernike who claimed that there is "an echo of slavery, Jim Crow and George Wallace" in Tea Party calls for federalism, claimed the animating force of the movement is an "us vs. them" mentality (them being minorities and illegal immigrants). In other words, Zernike is not the most impartial of Tea Party observers.
Though she was less hackish than usual, Zernike still snuck a few cheap shots into her discussion. She avoided racism accusations but incessantly repeated claims that the Tea Party is comprised of "extremists" and is inherently contradictory.
One must wonder why State would choose such an obviously biased reporter to head up a briefing intended to promote "accuracy" and "balance."
Zernike has cried racism again and again and again in her coverage of the Tea Party. Calls for states' rights? Racism. Opposition to the minimum wage? Racism. Objections to federal welfare programs? Also racism.
Discussing the Tea Party's intellectual influences, Zernike dubbed Nobel-winning economist F.A. Hayek an "obscure" writer, and pondered bizarre concepts like the rule of law.
And of course this is the same Kate Zernike who found "racial tones" in now-Human Events editor Jason Mattera's criticism of President Obama. She claimed Mattera was using a "Chris Rock voice," apparently mistaking his Brooklyn accent for an impersonation of an African American.
So the woman clearly has some preconceived notions about the Tea Party. They are reflected in her book, reviewed at NB by TimesWatch editor Clay Waters.
Yet despite her apparent biases, the State Deparmtnet selected Zernike to speak to foreign media at its Foreign Press Cetner. State describes it thusly:
The Foreign Press Centers support U.S. policies by helping foreign media cover the U.S. Their goal is to promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S., by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources.
"Accuracy" and "balance" are not exactly Zernike's M.O. when it comes to covering the Tea Party. Yet there she was, taking questions from the foreign press on a movement she clearly does not like.
Though Zernike's discussion of the movement was considerably less hostile than much of her Times coverage, she managed to fit in a few leftist canards, such as this one:
One of the central contradictions of the movement has been that as much as this is a smaller government movement wanting less spending and less government intervention in our lives, about half the people of the supporters were on Medicare or Social Security or lived with someone who was. Of course these are the biggest government programs in the country. These are the chief areas that are driving up the national debt.
"This is a patently fallacious argument," writes the Washington Examiner's Mark Hemingway, "only adopted by the Tea Party's most partisan opponents." Indeed, Hemingway links to his colleague Tim Carney's assessment of the argument:
Of all the arguments liberals bring up against the Tea Party, this has to be the stupidest. Not only have millions of seniors and their employers paid billions of dollars into the Medicare system — 2.9 percent on every dime they’ve worked for in their entire life — but the program’s very existence has dried up whatever market there once was for old-age medical insurance. Our Medicare system, as President Obama never fails to point out, is unsustainable, and yet thanks to the government, very few senior citizens have any alternative.
Though Zernike laudably dodged a question from a Spanish reporter clearly designed to elicit a racism charge, she did harp on the notion that the movement is comprised of a bunch of "extremists" well outside the mainstream of public opinion. The irony of course is that Zernike is a liberal reporter in a center-right nation proclaiming what is and is not within the mainstream of American political opinion.
It also makes you wonder why State would choose Zernike to brief the foreign press on the movement. She clearly observes it through the lens of political liberalism and as someone who quite clearly does not agree with the Tea Party platform.
- Lachlan Markay's blog
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Comments
It Isn't Just a Briefing
Submitted by JustAl on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 2:58pm.
It's a job interview. Meet the new press secretary.
The fact that the State Department . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:01pm.
. . . run by Hillary Clinton, was sponsoring any kind of commentary on US domestic politics to an international media audience, goes beyond the pale.
This is the same State Department that submitted Arizona's S 1070 law to the UN Human Rights Commission for a 'ruling.'
When the GOP takes control of the House in January, they need to begin an investigation.
Remember the Verona Documents?
Submitted by JustAl on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:10pm.
State needs to be cleared out en masse, every leftist mole needs to be let go. This department has always operated as an unelected ruling elite.
Small correction
Submitted by CO2Maker on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 7:26pm.
Venona, not Verona.
Of all people?!
Submitted by Edhenry on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:04pm.
Of all people?!
What’s funny is that
Submitted by ninerdog on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:28pm.
What’s funny is that the foreign press reports on the TEA party correctly for the most part. She was spinning her tail to people that know more about the subject than she does.
"She was spinning her tail"
Submitted by CO2Maker on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:08pm.
Really? Do they have any video of that? It might be fun to watch!
<g> <-Obligatory Internet G-spot
Unless the Room Is Very Very Dark
Submitted by JustAl on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:26pm.
I think the only way should cold get a spin would be to sit on an out of balanc washing machine.
Does the idea of a leftist
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:50pm.
Does the idea of a leftist reporting on theTEA party to foriegn press surprise anyone? Or that the Obama state department hired her to report on the TEA party? Seems to me that this woman most likely has the same views as Obama. Birds of a feather flock together.
Washington - walls need to come down
Submitted by MaximusBraveheart on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:10pm.
We need change all right! Drive these socialist, selfish liberals down the toilet bowl! Our country was not based on how they FEEL. But on our rights and our founding principals AND values. We need to take over the school system and teach real history. The brain washing of please-me politics, at the expense of freedom, needs to be exposed. Tyranny just is not worth this "security." It is false!
-- Maximusbraveheart -- Is TRUTH knowable? Moral Relativism is the abandonment of Truth. Truth is knowable. Truth conforms to Reality. Reality is observable by evidence & witness in this day & from history. Relativism is Sesame Street play land.
Analogy
Submitted by octavioj on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:28pm.
That is like asking a communist to brief the press on capitalism, is it not?
My two cents
Submitted by jdlybrand on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:59pm.
Like appointing Colonel Saunders spokesperson for 'Chicken's Rights'.
"What a revoltin' development this is!"
Chester Riley
This is tantamount to asking
Submitted by ML Stovall on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 5:11pm.
This is tantamount to asking Quasimoto (sp?) to explain ancient Roman culture to the cast of Jersey Shore.
You cannot be serious...!
Submitted by d1carter on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 5:37pm.
You cannot be serious...!
Exactly
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 5:49pm.
And shame on the foreign press for allowing themselves to be spoon-fed by the Obama State Department.
Gosh, does anyone remember them slurping up Bush briefings? Because I certainly don't.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Zernike: "the anti-establishment clause"
Submitted by mom_rox on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 6:08pm.
from the link, Zernike: However, it is generally accepted by constitutional scholars that the concept is enshrined in the constitution in the First Amendment, in what we call the anti-establishment clause, that “Congress shall make no law establishing a religion.” (emph. mine)
hmmm, okay...
Reductio ad absurdum.
Submitted by samhermanmd on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 6:14pm.
Perhaps they could have substituted Helen Thomas or Noam Chomsky instead.
Someone remind Zernike that
Submitted by jdhawk on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 1:30am.
Someone remind Zernike that Jim Crow laws were inacted and enforced by dimocrats. They held the majority in the local, county, state, and federal elected positions throughout the South for, in some cases, going on two centuries.
George Wallace was a racist dimocrat!. He controlled Alabama politics from the state house as governor. He served four terms. However, his first attempt at running for the office met with defeat. Here is what he had to say about that defeat, "Seymore (Governor Patterson's aide), you know why I lost that governor's race?... I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again."
Zernike is attempting to paint the Tea Party with the racist brush by using heinous examples of dimocrat racism.
Yet, I will bet that this blazing show of ignorance on the part of Zernike was not lost on the actual journalist at this briefing.
Unbelievable . . .
This was a state-sponsored book promotion event for Zernike
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 10:04am.
Payola for the great job she's being doing.
In the short transcript, she used the phrase "in my book,..." no less than six times.
I wonder if she did an autograph session afterwards.
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