You might have figured this was coming, that when dust settled from the Sept. 12 march on Washington, D.C., the brain trust at MSNBC would attempt to frame it as negatively as possible.
And MSNBC's resident left-wing curmudgeon-in-training David Shuster didn't disappoint. The former host of the canceled "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" took a report from the Huffington Post debunking attendance figures and attempted to belittle the event. The story focused on an old photograph that had been circulating on some minor conservative blogs showing a huge crowd for the Sept. 12 march.
Shuster asked Washington Examiner columnist and author of "The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money" if some conservative blogs were going to circulate a phony photo, why should the movement have any credibility? But Carney didn't take the bait and instead showed that MSNBC and other mainstream media outlets were committing a similar offense.
"I mean, that's what I would say about MSNBC and a lot of the mainstream media as well," Carney said on MSNBC Sept. 14. "If they can't be honest about what's actually going on in the crowd, why should we believe them about anything else - I mean you guys are focusing on a handful of nutjobs who are at this rally?"
Carney noted that in 2001 and 2002, when the left was actively protesting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, there were fringe elements in the mix. Those elements were not reported by the media with the same scrutiny MSNBC was dedicating to the tea party movement.
"I was at the anti-war protests back in 2001 and 2002," Carney said. "And I'll tell you, I saw, you know there were anarchist with masks over their faces. And there were at least 20, maybe 50 of those that I saw, I saw people holding up pro-Fidel Castro signs. There were Maoists at those protests and my friend Mark Hemingway - he's a writer. Go back and read the stuff he wrote. There were lots of nutjobs there, but that's not the main story."
And, it's a similar passion fueling this movement that propelled Obama to the presidency, Carney explained
"The main story is people are angry," Carney said. "The same sort of passion that was directed at supporting Barack Obama during the campaign has turned against him."
He admitted the ones circulating the old photographs weren't doing their cause any favors, but only because it was giving left-wing outlets like MSNBC and the Huffington Post fodder to undermine the conservative protesters' efforts.
"People who are lying about crowd sizes, sending out Photoshopped pictures - yeah, they're actually hurting the cause because people like the Huffington Post and MSNBC will dedicate segments to lies about the crowd size rather than to what's at stake and how much money is being spent, what will this debt mean for inflation for interest rates for my children's taxes that they'll have to pay."
He explained those elements were giving the media cover not to have to report on issues and show how General Electric and the pharmaceutical lobby could benefit from the so-called reforms advocated by the administration.
"Is cap-and-trade - that's a giveaway to sorts of corporations, like the parent company of MSNBC, GE. The health care reform - that's supported by Pfizer and PhRMA. I mean, we should be focusing on the issues these people are upset about rather than the lies, so I agree."
