Our media elites arrogantly lecture about our democracy being undermined by robotic propaganda, but do they ever listen to themselves talk about the Democrats? Somehow, they think their robotic propaganda is just the “truth.” The press came to witness the Senate impeachment trial, and Rep. Adam Schiff had them at hello.
No member of Congress has been more dramatically partisan in this war on the Trump presidency than Schiff. Did you know he’s the second coming of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg? Check out this list of the media’s responses to his opening statement at the trial.
1.”I think it’ll go down as one of the great performances … He just shreds the other side every time he gets up,” claimed MSNBC’s Jonathan Alter.
2. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer declared it was “a very, very powerful and forceful speech … a very, very strong case from Adam Schiff.”
3. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called it “dazzling … really remarkable” and said, “It was the second-best courtroom address, since it’s like a courtroom, that I ever heard.”
4. On Twitter, Washington Post reporter Greg Miller oozed, “the way he has handled impeachment will leave a mark on history, exceeding nearly all contemporaries.”
5. Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin wrote a valentine to Schiff’s “grand slam” with the headline “Adam Schiff’s Brilliant Presentation Is Knocking Down Excuses to Acquit.”
6. ABC’s Terry Moran said: “It was meticulous and well-organized. It was grounded in evidence, which he recited and arranged … in a comprehensive narrative. At times, he tried to rise to a level of eloquence and stir a sense of responsibility for the Senate.”
7. MSNBC’s Jason Johnson insisted Schiff wasn’t just talking to senators: “He was speaking to 100 years in the future. This is a speech that kids are going to be giving in 2060 … at university projects.”
8. CNN’s Paul Begala seconded that emotion: “I believe what Adam Schiff said yesterday is going to be studied 40 or 50 years from now.”
9. MSNBC lovebirds Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski echoed each other in adoring Schiff’s “virtuoso performance.”
Then these people wonder why Americans watch Fox News instead! To love Schiff’s case, you have to believe that a single phone call from the president to the Ukrainian president is somehow an impeachable offense on the level of abuse of power and obstruction of the House.
What’s entirely missing from this tsunami of saccharine sentiments is an important counterargument. Schiff has lied and manipulated this entire process. Schiff’s staff was working with the “whistleblower” in August, before his complaint was filed. But then Schiff lied shamelessly on MSNBC on Sept. 17, saying, “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.” Two days later, he lied again when he thanked Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, without whom he “might not have even known there was a whistleblower complaint.”
The “fact-checkers” actually tagged Schiff on this, but how serious was their evaluation? Consider this: PolitiFact was founded in 2007, and this was the first time it has ever found an error in his statements. Since 2012, Sen. Ted Cruz has been subjected to 143 fact-checks, while Schiff has two.
The dishonesty of Schiff emerged again during the trial, as when he mischaracterized text messages from Ukraine-scandal figure Lev Parnas to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. As usual, the Schiff-adoring networks skipped right over his lies.
But they lecture us about the integrity of democracy.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.