The media have repeatedly stated how "angry," "hostile" and "ugly" town hall meetings across America are becoming. They are of course largely ascribing the nastiness to conservatives voicing their opposition to (among other things) President Barack Obama and Congress' proposed government takeover of the health care system.
The press has been particularly offended by the "extreme" use of references to Adolf Hitler specifically and Nazis generally. One image they have repeatedly used as an example of this alleged right-wing extremism is a poster of President Obama - on whose face a Hitler mustache has been Photo Shopped - bearing the caption "I've Changed."
We have compiled a video montage (at right) of just some of the recent news programs that have ascribed this Obama-with-Mustache poster to conservative town hall attendees. (The Obama-with-Mustache image itself appears just below the fold.)
NBC's August 7 Nightly News comes as close as possible to saying Limbaugh printed and distributed the Obama-with-Mustache posters himself without actually doing so. As they show the image, reporter Kelly O'Donnell's voiceover proffers "Some anger on display gets stoked by the provocative megaphone of Rush Limbaugh" as they then immediately cut to video and audio of Limbaugh.
On Sunday's Meet the Press, David Gregory's voiceover at the time of their Obama-with-Mustache visual is "but the rhetoric has become extreme." The voiceover lands on the word "extreme" when the Obama-with-Mustache poster appears, and they too then immediately cut to video and audio of Limbaugh.
How's that for subtle? But there's a problem with this media narrative.
No right-winger he. And neither he nor his acolytes are likely ones to be "stoked by the provocative megaphone of Rush Limbaugh." In fact (from Wikipedia):
In 1979, LaRouche formed a Political Action Committee called the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC). LaRouche has run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States seven times, beginning in 1980.
The Obama-with-Mustache sign is in fact offered up on LaRouche's website as a "Mass Distribution Poster." It is an enormous full color .pdf suitable for all your town hall Communist protest needs.
If only the media had invested the five seconds I did to discover this.
And it's not the only Obama-with-Mustache image to be found on LaRouche's website. Here's another.
It could very well be that many (most? all?) of the swastikas and Hitler images on display at these rallies are being toted by supporters of the very Leftist LaRouche, and not the conservatives to whom the media so readily and repeatedly ascribe them.
A fact upon which they could have stumbled had they read the five words on - and not just gawked in horror at - the Obama-with-Mustache signs. And not then been in such a hurry to run to the airwaves to blame the "extreme" Right for them.
How can we expect lawmakers to read 1,000+ page bills when we can't get reporters to read a mostly monosyllabic placard?
While LaRouche's website address is blurry here, it was there as clear as a bell for all the Jurassic Press to see at the rallies on which they were allegedly reporting. Yet they all somehow managed to overlook it, and inaccurately ascribe a Communist's artistic handiwork to conservatives.
Sadly, as always, the media never the let the facts get in the way of a good beating.
H/t: , who actually read the sign.
