Most conservatives understand the national media are biased against them and their causes, and have been for years.
But in the Trump era, media members have chosen to exhibit the same behavior they claim to hate in President Donald Trump. Thus, it seems decency has taken flight along with their objectivity.
As CNN’s Jake Tapper illustrates.
On Wednesday, as Democrats were pursuing their near party-line vote to impeach Trump a second time, Tapper opted to go after Rep. Brian Mast.
Mast is a second-term Republican from Florida. He also was a 12-year Army veteran who received the Purple Heart after losing both legs to an IED in Afghanistan.
Mast, like 196 other Republicans, voted against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s effort to get rid of Trump a week before he leaves office.
As the New York Post noted Wednesday, Mast posed a question during the debate that drew crickets as a response from House Democrats.
“I rise with a very simple question. On January 6, thousands broke the law by taking siege of our Capitol here with us inside,” Mast stated. “Has any one of those individuals who brought violence on this Capitol been brought here to answer whether they did that because of our president?”
“More than 27 seconds of awkward silence followed,” the Post noted, at the end of which, Mast said, “It appears I will receive no answer.”
Commenting on Mast’s appearance, Tapper said, “Congressman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, who lost his legs, by the way, fighting for democracy abroad, although I don’t know about his commitment to it here in the United States.”
That drew a righteously angry and appropriate response from Mast.
“I lost two legs for @jaketapper‘s right to say whatever the hell he wants,” Mast said on Twitter, “but that free speech also protects the Republicans he is so eager to condemn for asking Constitutional questions about the election.”
Instead of trying to be classy, Tapper opted to double down, calling Mast a seditionist, which apparently has become the new liberal pejorative for conservatives so accustomed to being labeled “fascists” or “racists.”
“You’re a hero for your service and I’m grateful, as I’ve said before,” Tapper clapped back at Mast on Twitter.
“And yes i question the commitment to democracy of anyone who spread election lies, signed onto that deranged TX AG lawsuit, and voted to commit sedition. You were not just asking questions.”
Tapper, of course, was among the slew of lazy journalists who “spread election lies,” as spoon-fed to them by anti-Trump Deep Staters in the CIA and FBI, about Trump’s supposed, but nonexistent, collusion with Russian operatives in 2016, while maligning others who searched for the truth.
For example, last May, in an interview with GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, Tapper branded the now well documented involvement of top Obama administration officials, including President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, in the effort to torpedo Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign a “crackpot conspiracy theory.”
Thanks to The Federalist we have a handy list of 10 times when Tapper’s own commitment to our democracy came into question, as he floated the asinine theory of Trump’s conspiracy with Russia. Here are some of the entries:
In 2016, during an interview with GOP Sen. John McCain, Tapper asked, “If a Democrat were in the same position as Donald Trump right now. The Democrat had been helped, arguably, by the Russians interfering. If the Democrat had never criticized Vladimir Putin, if a Democrat had appointed someone to be his Secretary of State who had received a friendship of Russia award, don’t you think you’d be much more critical of that President-elect than you’re being of Donald Trump?” Do all CNNers learn speechifying as questioning?
In November 2017 Tapper highlighted a CNN poll that found, as he said. 83 percent of the American people and a “shocking” 74 percent of Republicans believed there was “either limited or widespread coordination” between Trump and Russia. Why wouldn’t they think that? Tapper and the rest of the national media told them that for a year. As we now know, Mueller determined that no American worked with Russians to undermine the election.
In December 2017, Tapper accused Team Trump of lying about a June 2016 meeting with a Russian national. The woman claimed to offer dirt on Hillary Clinton but at the meeting wanted to discuss economic sanctions in the Magnitsky Act. Said Tapper: “CNN has learned there were follow-up communications… ones that congressional investigators are exploring to determine whether there was more to that June 9th, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower that has been disclosed.”
What Tapper, nor anyone else in the media told viewers, was that the woman who met with Trump’s people was also working with the guy Hillary Clinton had hired to dig up garbage on Trump from sources in Moscow – which is the real Russian collusion of that election.
In May 2018, Tapper interviewed Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, the focus of which was a tweet by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who asserted it was a “very real possibility that Vladimir Putin has compromised our commander in chief and turned him, and perhaps without his knowledge, into a Russian asset.”
During another May 2018 segment, Tapper bantered with Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who as we learned last year accepted fund-raising help from and was likely seduced by an actual Chinese communist spy, about the Russians believing “the President is more aligned with them than he is with us.”
In December 2018, Tapper entertained Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who has been shown to have repeatedly lied about his alleged evidence proving Trump’s connection to Russians. Without pushback from Tapper, Schiff declared that the Russian “outreach” efforts to Trump were “part of a concerted Russian influence operation that never stopped.”
In May 2019, Tapper accused Trump of making a “false claim” by saying he faced an “attempted coup” through the campaign-collusion investigation. By the time Tapper said this, it was well known that anti-Trump FBI agents had discussed an “insurance policy” to thwart Trump, and the the lead investigator, Peter Strozk, had a “gut sense” that “there’s no big there there,” but the FBI plowed ahead anyway.
Last February Tapper pumped up a New York Times report that said Russia was trying to “help” Trump again in 2020. After the story ran, the officials who made the claim backtracked and Tapper was forced to report that U.S. intelligence did not “have evidence that Russia’s interference this cycle is aimed at reelecting Trump.”
Too bad Tapper never had the courage to show his “commitment” to our democracy, as Congressman Mast bravely did. But, as one Twitter user noted of this controversy, Tapper’s “commitment to Democrats is unquestioned.”
Pure bull here any Congress member who didn’t vote for impeachment is suspect! You had Congress members showing people who would storm the building around the Capitol the day before the insurrection. You had a Congress member sending out the location of the Speaker during the insurrection. You have 3 Congress members accused by an organizer of the insurrection of having help plan it! All those members voted against impeachment! I applaud Mr.Mast’s military service and he sacrifice, but retired decorated combat veterans were part of the mob inside the Capitol, one with flex cuffs on the Senate floor. There were active service military in the mob too! Based on his vote, how do we know Mr. Mast isn’t sympathetic to this seditious insurrection. Mr. Mast lost his legs for defending freedom and democracy, voting against impeachment may show he isn’t defending those things in the Halls of Congress. That question needs to be asked. To let you know I am a retired police lieutenant, my son is a police officer and a National Guardsman who served two tours in Iraq.
We all have our opinions. I believe in the Constitution, and it would have been unconstitutional and stupid to impeach a non-sitting President. It was not the intent of the Constitution, nor was it applicable.