While some media outlets -- especially "public broadcasters" -- eschew using the word "terrorist" to describe Hamas and Islamic Jihad, PBS and NBC and MSNBC were enjoying describing Jim Jordan as a "terrorist," because bitter former Speaker John Boehner smeared him in 2021.
Tuesday's NBC Nightly News included a clip of Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) on the House floor: "Even members of his own party have called him a legislative terrorist."
PBS NewsHour reporter Lisa Desjardins offered quotes from Democrats that Jim Jordan is both a "terrorist" and an "insurrectionist." On the same show, anchor Amna Nawaz called Islamic Jihad a "militant group." Their reporter said Israel killed the "most high-profile militant" in Hamas.
MSNBC kept coming back to it on Tuesday night. As part of a softball question to Nancy Pelosi, Joy Reid pulled out the 2021 CBS clip of John Boehner singling out Jim Jordan as a "political terrorist," and then repeats the T-word,
Chris Hayes said Jordan has "no resume" to be Speaker and told Brendan Buck "your former boss, John Boehner, called him a legislative terrorist." Lawrence O'Donnell ran a longer clip of Aguilar than NBC saying Jordan is a terrorist. At least O'Donnell referred to Hamas terrorists, too.
Meanwhile, the BBC proclaimed: “Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn -- who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Company announced “Do not refer to militants, soldiers or anyone else as ‘terrorists.’ The notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized.” These networks demonstrated they're heavily politicized by going soft on Hamas, but using the T-word to describe what they call the "far right." CBC critics noted they were okay with using the T-word to describe the Proud Boys.
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