WaPo Fires Snark at Conservatives in Item on Mythbusters Cannon Mishap

Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes couldn't resist inserting a poke at conservatives in a sarcastic Thursday piece on a recent cannonball incident involving the Discovery Channel hit Mythbusters. De Moraes emphasized how the popular series is a "darling of conservative Republicans" and overreached to connect right-leaning politics to the wayward projectile that crashed into a house.

The writer led her column, "'Mythbusters' misfires with cannonball stunt" by referencing the latest annual survey from Experian-Simmons, which included a statistic on the favorite and least favorite TV programs of "liberal Democrats" and "conservative Republicans." De Moraes hinted that the mishap was symbolic of the supposedly destructive partisanship that liberals often accuse conservatives of engaging in:

"MythBusters," a reality series we now know is a darling of conservative Republicans, decided this week to bust a few myths in the San Francisco Bay Area (that epicenter of liberalism) by firing a cannonball that crashed into a house, tore through an occupied bedroom, careened across a six-lane highway, skimmed another house and then attacked a minivan, which surrendered immediately.

The columnist added that "it all started when those smarty-pants at 'MythBusters' were trying to make some point or other about homemade cannons — we hope a point such as, 'Never ever shoot a homemade cannon within 10 miles of a residential area' — by firing a homemade cannon at large containers of water, which were supposed to absorb the impact. They missed."

The implication is that the Mythbusters's politics also lean to the right. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Jamie Hyneman, who is the Abbott to the Costello embodied in his co-star, Adam Savage, revealed in a 2006 podcast with a "skeptics'" publication, that he "strongly identifies" with atheists. Savage himself donated to the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama and the 2009 senatorial campaign of Al Franken. Speaking of Obama, the President made a well-publicized appearance on Mythbusters in an episode which aired exactly one year ago on December 8, 2010.

Conservatives may like the "reality series," as De Moraes labeled it, for the guns, explosions, and its overall entertainment value (not to leave out co-host Kari Byron, who definitely appeals to the male demographic), but the TV columnist really stretched in her snark. It's no surprise that she would attack right-of-center TV viewers, as she wanted Vice President Biden to call Elizabeth Hasselbeck a "nincompoop" when he made an appearance on The View on ABC in April 2010.