David Shuster Embarrasses Himself Trying to Embarrass GOP Congresswoman

This story is simply too rich. It seems every day we are seeing the Left time after time try to nail the Right and the ploy explodes in their face. We saw the guy that called Bush an idiot for falling off a Segway fall off of one and break three ribs. We saw the BetrayUs ad blow up in the Left's face and by this single gaffe gave their momentum against our presence in Iraq a jolt to the core.

David Shuster of MSNBC did a little research before interviewing GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. He thought an ambush would be just the thing for a supposedly objective journalist to do. Here is a partial transcript of the slimy attempted "gotcha" courtesy Newsbusters.com:

SHUSTER: Let's talk about the public trust. You represent of course a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?

MARSHA BLACKBURN: The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq from my district? I do not know.

SHUSTER: OK, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn't know the name?

He even later went for the jugular vein with this zinger after she expressed appreciation for the sacrifices of our troops:

SHUSTER: Well, you weren't appreciative enough to know the name of this young man . . . I still think it's a little bit surprising that you didn't know the name of this last soldier killed in Iraq who's only 18 years old yet you do know so much about the MoveOn.org ad and the tactics you didn't like.

So we finally see the root of Shuster's attack being sour grapes over the MoveOn debacle and its political fallout. Well it turns out that Pvt. Jeremy Bohannon did not come from Blackburn's district. He came from Democrat John Tanner's 8th district. In Shuster's rush to leap to the defense of MoveOn.Oink, he came with shoddy research and has only succeeded in embarrassing himself. He has come out with a stiff and awkward apology.

Can you imagine the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he must have felt when he was informed he had botched the hatchet job? I can think of a few things that would cause such a feeling. Flying by a hidden cop in a speed trap, seeing the radar gun on you and looking at the speedometer showing 90 in a 55. Or the day Dan Rather found out the documents he was going to nail Bush with were forged and technology could prove it. Or being in front of hundreds of wedding guests and the bride suddenly says she can't go through with it and runs out. Or finding out your flight has canceled and you are going to miss embarking on your cruise. The best part is the ammunition this provides every conservative for future interviews with Shuster. Oh David, are you sure you got your research right on that?

Kudos to Dan Abrams for Amanpour Smackdown

Dan Abrams from MSNBC has given a very direct and firm criticism of the "God's Warriors" piece recently done by CNN's Christiane Amanpour. It has been some time since I gave kudos to anybody (conservative or liberal) and Dan Abrams deserves them. I am not quite sure of his motives, but the directness and clarity of the points he makes are quite at odds with the usual 'grayness' we have come to expect from the liberal media. The firmness of Abrams' rebuttal is nothing short of a smackdown of Amanpour.

I did not see the God's Warriors piece, but the overall theme, promotional segments and quotes I have seen after the fact have convinced me that it was quite abhorrent. The notion the modern day extremists from Islam, Judaism and Christianity are in any way equivalent is nowhere rooted in reality. Every religion has its nut cases, where some express their faith in violent and murderous ways. However, when comparing the occasional murderer of non-Islamic faiths to the volume and embracing of terrorist acts in the Muslim world; there is no comparison whatsoever. Yet Amanpour is not only putting them in the same ballpark, but on equal footing. Dan Abrams not only calls her on making them equivalent, but points out her shameless attempts at defending Islam to the point of painting them as victims. Here are some of Abrams' quotes:

He calls Amanpour's piece "a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism," and a "shameful advocacy masked as journalism".

"Christians and Jews, for example, who support Israel's strategy for self-defense are just as much God's warriors, according to Amanpour, as the Islamic radicals who blow themselves and others up in an effort to destroy the world as we know it."

"CNN should have called it what it was: a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism"

"She portrays Muslims as victims, while accusing evangelical Christians of playing the victim."

"...the Muslims as the victims, again, throughout this whole piece."

"This series was well-produced and successful, but also shameful advocacy masked as journalism."

Apparently Amanpour brought out the tired myth of Timothy McVeigh as a Christian terrorist. While Abrams does not correct the record on this falsehood, he does point out the falseness of Amanpour's claim that this fits the "warriors" theme because McVeigh was part of a militia. McVeigh 1) Never claimed to be a Christian 2) Claimed to be an agnostic. The fact that Amanpour has to scratch around and play loose with the truth in order to produce a Christian terrorist shows the depth of her bias.

While I praise his response I am not sure why Abrams came out so hard hitting on this. He seems passionate enough for his objection to be genuine. It could also be a business opportunity to take a jab at CNN as a competitor. He ends the piece with:

Well, I can tell you this, CNN is listening to this segment, so maybe they will hear you loud and clear on that and make up for what I think was really well done but ultimately shoddy journalism.

Combined with the fact that Abrams is the General Manager at MSNBC, this response could be a strong attempt to knock off a few points in the credibility of CNN. Nothing wrong with that in a competitive free market; especially when the criticism is spot-on. Whatever his motives, I recognize Dan Abrams today for doing a good job in this response. While Islamic terrorists enjoy hero status in much of the Muslim world, any terrorist act by a Jew or Christian would be strongly and universally denounced on the spot. There is no comparison or parallels to be drawn. Amanpour has done the world a disservice by making the claim that there is; and she deserved the smackdown delivered by Abrams.

(H/T Newsbusters.org - Brad Wilmouth)