MRC's Bozell Blasts MSNBC for Rush Smear

The Media Research Center distributed the following press release Monday afternoon:

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell blasted MSNBC for deliberately misrepresenting statements radio host Rush Limbaugh made Thursday about an anti-war activist who falsely and despicably passed himself off as an Army Ranger and Purple Heart winner. On Friday, MSNBC’s Hardball and Countdown programs wrongly adopted the dishonest spin of the far-left group Media Matters to attack Limbaugh.

On Monday, three days before Limbaugh’s comments, ABC’s World News exposed the same anti-war activist, and ABC reporter Brian Ross declared his story “a complete fabrication.” In spite of this, Media Matters and MSNBC pounded Limbaugh for making the exact same point.

“The character assassination train continues to roll along. Last week, CNN and CBS took unfair aim at Bill O’Reilly. And now, MSNBC has willfully disregarded its news judgment to air false allegations about Rush Limbaugh. This is nothing short of a deliberate pattern to smear the reputations of conservative media personalities in order to eliminate any voice of opposition. These are the tactics of both Media Matters and MoveOn.org. News organizations have no business perpetuating these smears. The least they can do is check the facts.

“Media Matters and its co-conspirators in the liberal media are striving to restore the leftist media majority that existed before the New Media. They have crossed all lines of honesty and decency. In June, NBC highlighted Media Matters’ out-of-context attack on Limbaugh’s parody song, “Barack the Magic Negro.” Last week, CNN & CBS promoted Media Matters’ dishonest attack on Bill O’Reilly. Since the liberal media have lost the confidence of their viewers, they have resorted to parroting character attacks by a left-wing smear machine and has forsaken its journalistic credibility,” Bozell concluded.