Media Matters: Storming Camelot: Sen. Kennedy's death brings out worst from the right

[and-justice-for-all]

Careful: the following will send you into a frenzy!
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Following Wednesday's early-morning news that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy had lost his battle with brain cancer, Media Matters posted the following statement from president Eric Burns at 3:51 a.m. ET on the County Fair blog:

"Ted Kennedy was a true American statesman. The values that he so eloquently and tirelessly championed represent the best of our American ideals. He reached across the aisle to get hard work done but never sacrificed principle. Though he is gone, the dream will forever live on. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Vicki Kennedy, the Senator's family, his loyal staff and the millions of lives he touched throughout his historic life and career."

Far from letting Kennedy rest in peace, many media conservatives savagely attacked the Senate's last liberal lion. Leading the charge was radio host Rush Limbaugh, who began his broadcast Wednesday morning eulogizing Kennedy by calling him "the lion of the Senate" before noting that "we were his prey." Hardly finished, El Rushbo would go on to say that "Kennedy screwed up everything he touched." He said Kennedy's opposition to Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination was "the beginning of the dawn of the age of the current hate." He claimed Kennedy "used the government to take money from people that work to give it to people that don't work" and that "most of Senator Kennedy's plans ended up damaging the people he seeks to help." Finally, Limbaugh marveled at the fact that "the Constitution is still there, even after Ted Kennedy in the Senate for 52 years." All that and more led MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Politico's Patrick Gavin to agree that "Limbaugh showed great restraint" in discussing Kennedy's death. Can you imagine what Rush would have said had it not been for such "restraint?"

Limbaugh was hardly alone in his disgusting attacks on Kennedy. Radio host and Fox News political analyst Tammy Bruce kept it classy, claiming on Twitter that Fox News Sunday's Chris "Wallace noted the last great act of Kennedy's career was to endorse Obama. I agree: he left a woman to drown and now he's left us to drown."

Eric Sanger, a director at Premiere Radio Networks, ABC Radio/Citadel Media and The Sean Hannity Show, said on Facebook (emphasis added), "The irony is that the media is already positioning Ted as a champion for the little man against wealth and privilege. This piece of garbage was the poster child for wealth and privilege. Hopefully, this event will mark the end of this repugnant family and all the endless crap, entitlement, personal indulgences and collateral damage (Kopechne, Bessette, Bowman, Moxely, etc.)."

Wesley Pruden, a Washington Times columnist, wrote that Kennedy's death was "a good career move" and that Democrats "are smiling through their tears," while Andrew Breitbart, a fellow Times columnist, called Kennedy a "villain," a "duplicitous bastard," and a "prick" on Twitter, as noted by Politico. Riehl World View, a right-wing blog, came to Breitbart's defense, claiming that liberals criticizing him were "hypocrites" because when Dick Cheney dies, they're going to do the exact same thing. That's right, liberals today are hypocrites because of what they might do in the future. Now that's some crazy fortune-telling.

Fox News host Sean Hannity told his audience that "out of respect for his family," he had decided not to "bring up Mary Jo Kopechne" or Kennedy's "radical socialism." Seriously.

When they weren't busy attacking Kennedy's legacy, media conservatives -- like Fox News' Laura Ingraham -- were attacking Democrats for purportedly attempting to use his passing to stifle debate and enact health care reform legislation, repeatedly calling this supposed tactic the "death card." In a true episode of pot meets kettle, conservative media figures -- like health care serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey -- have used Kennedy's death to attack health care reform, some even baselessly suggesting that if reform passes, elderly cancer patients -- as Kennedy was -- will be "denied" treatments or that their treatments will be "rationed." Limbaugh said that "Ted Kennedy didn't have to read a death book," while Tom Marr, guest-hosting Lou Dobbs' radio show, said under a public option, a "bureaucrat" would have told Kennedy, "77, brain tumor, bye-bye."

On top of the relentless smears from media conservatives, several mainstream press outlets repeated without question the GOP claim that Kennedy's absence from the health care debate prevented lawmakers from reaching a bipartisan compromise and that had Kennedy been present, agreement on health care reform would have been more likely. Several progressive commentators have identified this talking point as GOP spin intended to disguise Republicans' obstructionism, with Salon.com's Joan Walsh, for example, stating that "absolutely no evidence supports that point of view" and washingtonpost.com blogger Ezra Klein noting that Kennedy's committee has already reported out a bill -- a progressive one, at that.

In another example of, shall we say, interesting reporting, ABC's Jonathan Karl claimed on August 27 that if "last night's town hall meeting in Phoenix is any indication" of whether Kennedy's death will "inspire newfound unity on health care reform," "the answer seems to be no." But the video Karl aired to support his claim was from an August 25 event that occurred before Kennedy's death, not from "last night."

Perhaps worst of all, conservative media figures -- like Fox News' Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, Limbaugh, and National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez, to name a few -- have returned to the tired smear that the memorial service for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) became "a political rally" to suggest that progressives will excessively politicize Kennedy's death. But as now-Sen. Al Franken documented at length, the claim that Wellstone's memorial was politicized is a myth based on distortions propagated by the conservative media.

Which leads me to think this is becoming a case of déjà vu all over again.

www.Mediamatters.org

[SpiralHawk]

1. "No way. We can go a LOT lower. Smirk." - Right-wing Republicon Homelanders

[Honeycombe8]

2. The party of hate. I don't recall anything like this going on when Reagan died.

Everyone was respectful, as I recall.

[jasi2006]

3. You mean there is a "worst" for RW media?

They have been this low all the time. They are no worse than they have ever been in my mind. Pure scum today, yesterday, and forever. They will never change, never.

[robo50]

4. Right wing media really smells, doesn't it?

In light of what John McCain said last night, and Orrin Hatch...

Those media right wingers are really just smelly old men with no purpose in life.