In a fact-checking column for The Washington Post titled, “Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicts the media — on bogus, Trumped-up charges,” writer Aaron Blake takes White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to task for airing her grievances with the press, accusing her of distortions and inaccuracy. But Blake has some problems of his own.
Blake writes, “White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has taken to the briefing room podium twice this week. Both times, she has come loaded for bear with a list of grievances … The problem: Her arguments showed exactly why the media is so hard on the Trump White House — and rightfully so.”
Blake quotes Sanders as saying, “The media has attacked me personally on a number of occasions, including your own network — said I should be harassed as a life sentence, that I should be choked.”
Blake proceeds to parse (to the best of his ability) what Sanders said, writing:
Nobody said Sanders should be harassed as a life sentence. This refers to a TV appearance from Washington Post opinion blogger Jennifer Rubin. Rubin was actually saying that declining to serve Sanders at the Red Hen restaurant wasn’t a fruitful course of action and that people should protest instead. Rubin said nothing directly about people “harassing” Sanders, although she did say being “uncomfortable” should be a “life sentence” for Sanders, for “lying” and “inciting” people against the press.
Blake does not use the whole quote from Rubin. Here’s the full quote, in which Rubin lumped Sanders in with senators in Congress:
But what’s most successful is getting a million people on the street to protest. So let’s redirect all of that good, pent-up energy to something that makes a difference. Let’s get a million people to go to Maine or a million people to go to Alaska and start putting pressure on those senators. So it’s perfectly civil to do that–no one is telling them to be violent protesters, but we’re not going to let these people go through life unscathed. Sarah Huckabee has no right to live a life of no fuss, no muss, after lying to the press—after lying to the press, after inciting against the press. These people should be made uncomfortable, and I think that’s a life sentence, frankly.
Blake continues: “Nobody advocated for Sanders being choked.” He argues that this characterization from Sanders “relies on a quite uncharitable version of events from conservative media. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace … didn’t call for choking Sanders, but instead asked a reporter if she ever wanted to ‘wring’ Sanders’s neck out of frustration.”
Actual quote from Wallace to NBC News’ White House reporter Kristen Welker: “How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck?” That does seem to imply Wallace is speaking of her own temptation.
Blake concludes, “It’s also a bit rich to lodge complaints about the media when your own arguments are so inaccurate. If these are the best examples Sanders has, it suggests she doesn’t have much of a hand to play. Sanders regularly accuses the media of being shoddy with the facts; she should dislodge the plank from her own eye.”
There are indeed some other comments from Sanders that Blake cites that are not entirely accurate, but Blake’s desire to substantiate his argument with the examples from above does not help his case.