On the same day that President Joe Biden implied Jan. 6 was a darker day than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, leftist protesters fought and shoved police and burned the American flag near the Capitol. They pulled down the American flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag. Some flew the Hamas flag and vandalized monuments with spray-painted slogans like “Hamas is comin'” and “I commend Hamas.”
The occasion was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to a joint session of Congress. So how would our D.C.-riot-hating media treat this? Some largely pretended it did not exist (like The Wall Street Journal news pages). Even Netanyahu denouncing some protesters as “useful idiots” for Iran didn’t drag out more detail.
Others went into denial. On the “PBS NewsHour,” reporter Nick Schifrin asked former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) about Netanyahu calling protesters “useful idiots” for Iran. Malinowski replied, “If you look at the protesters who are flying the Hamas flag and burning the American flag –” Schifrin interrupted: “You mean they’re flying the Palestinian flag.” No, photographs showed Hamas flags were flown by someone. It’s funny how they avoid that.
On NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Jennifer Ludden found protesters to denounce Biden as a “silent accomplice,” but insisted they were “largely peaceful.” Shoving cops and vandalizing monuments and burning flags were not “considered.”
On NBC, you could see vandalized monuments behind anchorman Lester Holt, but he and reporter Andrea Mitchell merely used the “thousands of protesters” to underline that Netanyahu was controversial, not that the protesters were in any way controversial. No flag-burning appeared, and no violence toward police was pointed out.
On CBS, reporter Scott MacFarlane — who aggressively promoted the Pelosi-Picked Panel on Jan. 6 for several years — showed protesters burning the American flag and described them as merely “raucous.” He also highlighted protests by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (with her little black paddle with the words “War Criminal”) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who claimed it was “important not to legitimize a leader who attacked democracy.”
Only ABC devoted an entire TV story to the protests. ABC reporter Matt Gutman showed the flag-burning and burning Netanyahu in effigy. He showed “defaced” monuments. But there was no mention of violence toward police (just officers were “swarmed”). On screen, ABC put “violent” in quotation marks about the protesters.
None of these stories described the protesters with an ideological label, when the organizers are radical-left, and some are affiliated with communist parties (like International ANSWER). The New York Times offered 17 paragraphs on “activist groups” without a label, although they noted the crowd was “waving Palestinian flags.”
The Washington Post, the local paper, put “U.S. flag set ablaze” in their headline, but noted “most demonstrators walked and chanted peacefully.” There were no ideological descriptions in 36 paragraphs. They were just “pro-Palestinian protesters.” They did quote the vandalized messages “All Zionists are bastards” and late in the piece, “Hamas is comin’.” But they did let a leftist rabbi denounce Netanyahu as a “zealot” with “fascist politics.”
While most stories noted that scads of Democrats from Kamala Harris on down boycotted the Netanyahu speech, no one questioned whether that was controversial with Jewish voters or could harm the Democrats in the fall.
It was fascinating when Harris then issued a statement condemning flag-burning, “unpatriotic” protesters associated with Hamas, and “pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric.” Where did she find out about that? Too many “news” outlets buried that news.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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Bear in mind Kamala’s Minnesota “GO Fund” of $35 million raised to defend the George Floyd rioters only spent about $180,000 to release the rioting criminals back on to the streets to live to loot and burn another day. We saw some reoriented back into action recently in the Union station flag burning episode. Even after Joe and Kamala skimmed off their 10% there are still tens of millions left in this subject converted Kamala campaign fund to assure their anarchists can still create havoc on the streets during the coming election to assure their shock troops with no fear that they will ever spend one full day in jail. Just another case of the morally blind leading the mentally blind, and the Anti-American democrat duped useful idiots leading their socially indoctrinated university-trained useful idiots whose party indoctrination education costs will soon be erased in student loan forgiveness, funded by the taxpayer’s money. Indeed, their craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not their equal, when it comes to never letting a crisis go to waste, and ability to create/reorient more opportunistic crisis to take advantage of, when real Americans put out the flames of the ones they already started. The question is, WHERE’S the FBI???? and the ghost of Eliot Ness and the FBI untouchables, now apparently being touched by the Joe and Kamala Kabal to look away and to stand down while even opposing Presidential candidates appear in their crosshairs.
Add to that, THEY PUSHED the media to keep quiet about the destruction caused, banding around that “ITS JUST A PEACEFUL PROTEST” mantra for years..
On NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Jennifer Ludden found protesters to denounce Biden as a “silent accomplice,” but insisted they were “largely peaceful.” Shoving cops and vandalizing monuments and burning flags were not “considered.”
Largely Peaceful, like the BLM/Antifa Riots of 2020
Yep. Folks assaulted, places and property burned.. YET ITS “Mostly peaceful”.
COMPARED TO THe events of Jan sixth, which EVEN TO THIS DAY THEY INSIST WAS an insurrection, warranting folks being jailed indefinitely with no trial or jury of their peers.
Thanks AOC. It’s nice to know that when Israel attacked Gaza that they attacked democracy. What a dolt. I guess bartending school doesn’t cover what democracy really is
To libtards DEMOCRACY IS MOB rule… AND they are the mob.
One of kamala’s political ads Says trump wants to take away your right to protest and burn an American flag. Trump does want to make burning an American flag a hate crime Which I agree. The ad states Trump wants to suspend the rule of law. My question then is The rule of law why democrats are putting Criminals back on the streets
DEMS have not ‘cared’ about the rule of law since 2016, WHEN THEY REFUSED TO DO JACK Squat to all the rioters who attacked conservatives, during trumps FIRST run for office.