Crush Liberalism

David Shuster’s quasi-apology, plus his tips from MoveOn

Following up on yesterday’s Shuster story, he got caught with his pants down taking one in the ‘chute for the left team. He begrudgingly semi-apologizes:

Finally, Shuster’s on-air apology, which had all the spontaneity of a hostage video, differed from what he had said in a presumably more candid email earlier today. As noted at National Review’s Media Log, Shuster had replied to criticism from a reader by emailing this:

the story was about blackburn’s hypocrisy… it wouldn’t matter whether the soldier’s name was David shuster or Crazy Water [the email name of the reader]. she didn’t know the name, period.

Regards,
D

Translation: Who cares about the soldier? I just want to make my point.

How it’s hypocritical for her not to know the name of a dead soldier who WASN’T from her district is beyond me. If anything, hypocrisy is Shuster pretending to care about the death of a soldier, when in reality, the soldier is merely serving as a prop in his ill-fated “gotcha” attempt on TV!

Anywho, here’s the latest analysis, from the American Spectator:

MSNBC’s David Shuster is a bright reporter, who owes his career largely to being colleague Chris Matthews’s waterboy lo these many years. In the past he’s built a reputation for enterprise reporting, but earlier this week he attempted to embarrass Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn during an on-air interview:

Shuster: “Let’s talk about the public trust. You represent, of course, a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last solider from your district who was killed in Iraq?”

Blackburn: “The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq uh — from my district I — I do not know his name …

Shuster: “Okay, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the 9th, 2007. How come you didn’t know the name?”

Blackburn: “I — I, you know, I — I do not know why I did not know the name…”

Shuster: “But you weren’t appreciative enough to know the name of this young man. He was 18 years old who was killed, and yet you can say chapter and verse about what’s going on with the New York Times and Move On.org….

“Don’t you understand, the problems that a lot of people would have, that you’re so focused on an ad. When was the last time a New York Times ad ever killed somebody? I mean, here we have a war that took the life of an 18-year-old kid, Jeremy Bohannon, from your district, and you didn’t even know his name.”

One problem: the soldier in question wasn’t from Blackburn’s district. Another problem: MSNBC producers got the name from MoveOn.org, which has been compiling the names of deceased military personnel and feeding them to reporters for “gotcha” interviews.

There is no evidence that Shuster accepted the name at a discounted MSNBC ad rate, however. (Ouch! Good one! – Ed.)

It’s a good thing that journalists have these multiple layers of fact-checking at their disposal, otherwise they’d come across as poorly informed left-wing hacks. Oops…too late.

September 28, 2007 - Posted by crushliberalism | media bias, moonbats