1. Well, At Least It's Over!
After almost a month of attempts to impugn Brett Kavanaugh with flimsy, uncorroborated, 11th hour allegations, the liberal media saw their attempts come up empty on Saturday with Kavanaugh’s official confirmation to the Supreme Court.
But left behind in their wake was one dumpster fire after another, ranging from fake news to bias that radicalized even the most hardened Never Trumpers to rally behind the Judge.
Here are 12 NewsBusters blogs that encapsulated the media’s adversarial behavior toward the Kavanaughs and the right (with two per page).
2. Rabid CNN Panel Illustrates Media’s Early Mindset; Todd Suggests Kavanaugh ‘Withdraw’
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had only gone public a day earlier with her allegation against Kavanaugh, but CNN Newsroom’s Brooke Baldwin, senior political reporter Maeve Reston, and legal analyst Areva Martin were already dead set on Kavanaugh’s guilt.
To illustrate one example, Baldwin declared that “[i]t is no wonder why women are so hesitant to come forward” because — wait for it — their claims are scrutinized for accuracy!
The next day, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd stated on NBC’s Today that Kavanaugh was “definitely...in trouble” and surmised that it wouldn’t shock him if “by the end of the week....it wouldn’t surprise me if he chose to withdraw and chose to back down” for the good of the country. Yikes. And this came from the guy who’s supposed to be a neutral political referee.
3. ABC Skipped Death Threats to Kavanaughs; Matthews Argues Allegations Worse Than Moore, Porter
Perhaps the ugliest parts of the entire fiasco were the death threats leveled against each side. However, ABC’s World News Tonight decided on September 20 that it wasn’t worth telling viewers about the threats made against Kavanaugh and his family, instead harping on those against Ford.
That same night, MSNBC’s Hardball was a rather nutty affair with Matthews deeming Ford’s recollections to be “clear” and thus made for “an inconvenient truth” for Republicans. Matthews also grotesquely compared the Kavanaugh allegation as being worse than those leveled against Roy Moore, Rob Porter, and the various Fox News personalities that lost positions.
USA Today’s Susan Page dismissed Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky affair because it had happened in “a different time” in America. And that, readers, is the definition of whataboutism.
4. CNN, MSNBC Compare Kavanaugh to Cosby; NYT Writer Dismisses ‘Presumption of Innocence’
Two days before the high-powered Senate circus, a man was sentenced to years in prison after having been found guilty of being a sexually violent predator who, in addition to the incident he was found guilty of, had roughly 60 women accuse him of sexual misconduct. The man? Bill Cosby.
But for CNN and MSNBC on September 25, Cosby and Kavanaugh couldn’t be any more similar as CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin and MSNBC Live’s Katy Tur both engaged in and allowed the ugly comparisons to run rampant.
As for the morning of the hearings, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor told CBS This Morning that there is no longer a “presumption of innocence for the man who’s being accused” (aka Kavanaugh) and that Ford’s story had “grow[n] stronger.”
5. ‘Hardball’ Attacks ‘Belligerent’ Kavanaugh; CBS’s Pelley Questions Kavanaugh’s ‘Temperament’
Clearly irked by Kavanaugh’s performance in the September 27 hearing, the Hardball panel lashed out at the “belligerent” Judge who has a Jerkyll and Hyde problem. Matthews and friends speculated that Kavanaugh’s possible “criminal” lacking “the temperament to be a Supreme Court justice” who “damage[d] his credibility beyond repair[.]”
Former CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley used September 30's 60 Minutes to bask in Republican Senator Jeff Flake (AZ) caving to Democratic demands for an FBI background investigation and wondered if, considering Kavanaugh’s “very emotional response”: “Does this man belong on the Supreme Court?”
6. Camerota Finds Ford Believable Since Kavanaugh Threw Ice; ABC Hails ‘Hero’ Flake
As for the zaniest piece of liberal media bias in this entire fiasco, it’s hard to top CNN’s New Day co-host Alisyn Camerota declaring that Kavanaugh’s alleged ice-throwing incident during a bar fight in college made him much more likely to have committed sexual assault. Our Mark Finkelstein flagged this down, so check out Camerota’s full explanation here.
As for Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, ABC’s Nightline worshipped him on October 1 with co-host Byron Pitts dubbing Flake to be a “hero” who “soothed the nation” and suggested he was “sowing seeds of a new kind of politics” for having delayed Kavanaugh’s confirmation after Democratic lobbying.
7. NYT Deems Kavanaugh ‘A Jerk’; MSNBC’s Joy Rules Confirmation Equals Racism
Our New York Times whisperer Clay Waters was an indispensable source from Kavanaugh’s nomination to confirmation. His October 6 dispatch didn’t disappoint as he tore into an article by Elizabeth Williamson and a staff editorial that took liberal tilts.
Williamson blasted Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch for having “waggled his fingers dismissively” at an anti-Kavanaugh protester while treating the leftist mob like care. As for the editorial, The Times called him “a jerk” who’s faced “credible accusations of sexual assault.”
As the Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh, Scott Whitlock flagged down MSNBC’s Joy Reid trashing America as having been founded on “the idea that being a free white” man equals exclusive power with Mitch McConnell sees himself as a rule while “Democrats tend to believe in governing.”
Reid added:
This is Mitch McConnell’s rule. He is restoring order as he and people like him understand it. And they will impose it on the people like those people who are protesting. Women who are shrieking out in agony, saying “You cannot impose this on us, you can't send us back to the 50s.” But Mitch McConnell says, “Yes I can, I can impose order on you.”
