ABC's Brian Ross, who falsely accused a Tea Party member of being the Aurora movie theater mass murderer last Friday, is even taking heat from Jon Stewart.
On Comedy Central's Daily Show Monday, the host did a segment he called, “What Story Does a Guy Have to Blow to Get in Trouble at ABC?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JON STEWART, HOST: There is one area of this mess that I think is also worthy of comment, and it's the subject of our new segment: “What Story Does a Guy Have to Blow to Get in Trouble at ABC?"
You know, obviously when these types of stories occur, news organizations are scrambling to inform the public about the event.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I want go to Brian Ross here because Brian you’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes, and you found something that might be significant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: Ooh! That's George Stephanopoulos anchoring the ABC News coverage of the shooting, throwing to his colleague Brian Ross who found something - I believe George Stephanopoulos used the phrase "that might be significant." Go!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN ROSS: There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: Obviously the correct response to that statement is, “Brian, I thought you said you had something significant!” Not "Hey, George, let me interrupt you, I put the name James Holmes into my search engine and hit the ‘I’m feeling lazy button.’"
(Laughter and applause)
Of course Stephanopoulos is in the middle, Stephanopoulos is in the middle of doing a lot of things, and I'm assuming he was under the impression that Brian Ross checked out the s--t he's saying on air before saying it since Brian Ross is their chief investigative correspondent and not, let's say, the office gossip.
“Yeah, I Googled Jim Holmes and he's totally a porn star and I, I'm just, George, I'm just saying the killer is a porn star. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, that's totally John Holmes but, whatever.”
So of course two and a half hours later.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSS: An earlier report that I had was incorrect that he was connected with the Tea Party. In fact, that's a different Jim Holmes. He is not connected to the Tea Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: And? And?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSS: And what we do know about him is that he's a 24-year-old white male who went to Colorado for a Ph.D..
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: No. No. “And, I am really f--king sorry. Real sorry. Deeply sorry. Deeply, irrevocably sorry to the innocent man that I casually, baselessly, and publicly accused of, I don't know, maybe being a mass murderer. Because when I was Googling his name I saw the phrase ‘the Tea Party’ and I thought ‘Ooh, that's an interesting narrative, I should get that on the TV.’”
This killer may have been a member of the Tea Party. Who gives a s--t? What does that have to do with anything? With anything? Why is that? “Huh? George, Tea Party? Low taxes? Mad men? You do the math.”
But hey, no harm, no foul, right? Except HARM! And this dude isn't even grounded? Doesn't get detention? You're ABC! Sentence him to "Wipeout."
(Laughter and applause)
And that concludes our segment “Can a Brother Get a Suspension Up in This Bitch?”
Grounded? Detention? Suspension?
At this point, ABC hasn't even really apologized. Ross didn't even seem embarrassed by it.
As we've been saying for months, the closer we get to Election Day, the liberal bias is going to become even more difficult for so-called journalists to hide.
Just imagine what they'll be doing in October.
(HT Josh Feldman)
