ABC Reporter Derided 'Conservative Love-Fest' Over Fox Show '24'

June 27th, 2006 12:53 PM

ABC’s Jake Tapper had an interesting -- if not entirely dismissive -- take on the recent panel discussion of the Fox TV series, 24 hosted by Radio’s Rush Limbaugh.

Calling it a “love-fest”, Tapper was in the audience at the Heritage Foundation’s 24 discussion panel and wrote about it on his ABC blog as well as doing an on-air report on Nightline (June 23rd) and an ABC News “webcast” report.

He seemed amazed at the interest the show has generated, but he was not as surprised by the general public’s reaction to the show as to that of a specific segment of that fan base.

“The oddity of it all? It was the GOP power structure hosting the love-in.”

What is this supposed to mean, anyway? Should the “GOP power structure” not be allowed to like a TV show? Should they not be allowed to be a “fan” of something like “normal” people might?

Tapper asks the actress that plays Chloe O’Brien, Mary Lynn Rajskub, a question that further explores how “odd” Tapper feels it is that conservatives like the show.

“Is the fact that Washington D.C., that the power structure of this country so embraced your show disconcerting at all?”

Being a good little Hollywood denizen, Rajskub says it is (She said it was “very, very strange”), but what would one expect her to say? She doesn’t want to be thrown out of the Hollyweird club, after all!

His bemusement aside, the most outrageous thing that Tapper said in his on-air report revealed more of the typical “journalist” bias against conservatives.

“At a time when conservatives are struggling to get the message out, the show beats their drum”

“Struggling to get the message out”, Mr. Tapper? Was 9/11 just some slick special effect from a TV show being used to pull the wool over the eyes of the public? What about the London bombing? Madrid? Kobar Towers, the first WTC attack … even the U.S.S. Cole attack?? Are these all just “messages” that need to “get out”?

Tapper acts as if Conservatives are merely selling this “message” of terrorism as one might a tube of toothpaste during a commercial break on 24. And, of course, we all realize he probably IS saying that this terrorism “thing” is an overblown, demagoguery of the issues just to empower those evil Conservatives.

Does Tapper think terrorism is all smoke and mirrors? By his snide aside on TV, it would sure seem so.