NBC News Launched New Smear On Paul Pelosi

 

If you're a viewer of a certain corporate tv news network, you might want to switch channels:

NBC News reporter Miguel Almaguer had what seemed like a scoop on Friday about an intruder’s attack last week on Paul Pelosi. The curious new details he presented on the “Today” show quickly went viral on right-wing sites and social media accounts.

One problem: Much of Almaguer’s account was inaccurate, based on flawed information provided by a source who was unnamed in the report, according to people at the network. Those people said Almaguer was incorrect when he reported that the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave police no indication he was in danger when he answered the door. In fact, San Francisco police have said that Pelosi was struggling with the intruder, David DePape, when they first saw him.

But before NBC News’s hasty removal of the video from its website — accompanied by a vague note that the story “did not meet NBC News reporting standards” — it spawned a sinister new narrative...

We won't stink up this post any further with this particular example of egregious media malpractice (at the very least) except to say that this isn't the first incident where NBC News helped launch a right- wing smear.  You may recall NBC News/ Fox "News" aspirant Dasha Burns' effort to paint Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman in an unflattering light, an effort that was rewarded by the usual suspects:

The whole mess started with an NBC News segment on Fetterman in which reporter Dasha Burns discussed her pre-interview interaction with Fetterman, which didn’t involve closed captioning.

“Without captioning, it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation,” Burns said. The interview itself used closed captioning, and throughout it Fetterman had no visible problems processing or “understanding” her questions.

The problem is her use of the word “understanding,” which could be construed to suggest cognitive impairment, potentially misleading voters. Health experts note a sharp distinction between that and the post-stroke challenges in auditory processing Fetterman is experiencing, which can be mitigated with closed captioning but don’t impact cognitive functions such as intelligence or decision-making.

Burns did make this distinction clearer in an MSNBC appearance, explaining that closed captioning was needed to mitigate processing issues. But she again suggested Fetterman had trouble “understanding” her without it.

And presto: That language is exactly what [Fox's fascist fanboy Tucker] Carlson latched on to in his Wednesday night segment. He aired that Burns quote and then cynically transformed it into something even worse.

Burns' smear may have had a lasting effect on the race, which has been tightening as Republicans and their handmaidens in the media have continued to cast doubt on Fetterman's health.  Having lazy "reporters" and editors on your roster who act as willing or unwilling dupes at a time when our country's democracy is at stake is unforgivable.  Once in a cycle is bad enough.  Twice?  Time to switch channels.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in a heated contest during which the incumbent repeatedly threatened to dismantle the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal called the race for da Silva just before 7 p.m. Eastern time, with the leftist holding a narrow 50.83% to 48.17% lead with more than 98% of votes counted.

The victory will complete a triumphant return to the top of Brazilian politics for da Silva, the leader of the leftist Workers’ Party who previously served as the country’s president from 2003 to 2010, then spent nearly two years in prison on a corruption conviction that was ultimately annulled.

Four years after Brazilian discontent with a political establishment that da Silva had long represented helped propel Bolsonaro to victory, Brazilians turned back to the man they refer to simply as “Lula” in historic fashion: Bolsonaro is now the first president since Brazil’s return to democracy in the late 1980s to fail to win a second term.

The election did not provide a resounding defeat of Bolsonaro, one of a cadre of right-wing leaders putting democracies at risk worldwide, which da Silva and many of his supporters had once hoped for. But it was still a rejection of a leader who had spent his four years targeting Brazil’s democratic institutions and who seemed likely to use a second term in office to further erode the country’s democracy.

The bad:

In 2010, Republicans launched a “Fire Pelosi” project — complete with a bus tour, a #FIREPELOSI hashtag and images of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) engulfed in Hades-style flames — devoted to retaking the House and demoting Pelosi from her perch as speaker.

Eleven years later, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) joked that if he becomes the next leader of the House, it will be hard not to hit Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel.

And this year, Pelosi — whom Republicans have long demonized as the face of progressive policies and who was a target of rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — emerged as the top member of Congress maligned in political ads, with Republicans spending nearly $40 million on ads that mention Pelosi in the final stretch of the campaign, according to AdImpact, which tracks television and digital ad spending.

The years of vilification culminated Friday when Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer during an early-morning break-in at the couple’s home in San Francisco by a man searching for the speaker and shouting “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” according to someone briefed on the assault.

The ugly:

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but something strange, perhaps even pernicious, appears to be going on here. On one hand, the Beltway groupthink—which seems wed to the notion that Democrats are doomed—could simply be cheerleading for the outcome most of them have been predicting since the beginning of the year.

That’s what I had started to believe and what University of Florida professor and elections expert Michael McDonald suggested in a tweet Wednesday night. After The Economist data journalist G. Elliot Morris tweeted a meme stating the election “always has been” a referendum on the incumbent party, McDonald subtweeted, “If you want to know why election forecasters are cheering for a Republican victory, it is because their fundamentals forecasting models say it will happen.” [snip]

That overly optimistic assessment of GOP chances could be part of a feedback loop that helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Longwell suggested. But what if Republicans’ goal is an even more nefarious effort to prime GOP base voters into believing they've been cheated if Republicans don’t win big. What if, after all the red-wave hype, Democrats have a decent night and hold the Senate or, god forbid, have a really good night and maintain control of both chambers?

If that were to happen, the same Republican lawmakers and candidates who have spent two years spewing Donald Trump’s baseless stolen election garbage will be perfectly situated to weaponize the anger and dismay of their supporters once again. We’ve already seen this GOP play following 2020. It resulted in a violent coup attempt that took lives, injured more than 140 police officers, exacted longterm mental anguish, and continues to rip at the fabric of our country today. In fact, we haven’t even reached Election Day and already masked and armed vigilantes are harassing and intimidating voters who are merely trying to exercise their constitutional rights.

The potential for violence is real...

Bottom line:  Republican- wired horserace "journalism" is going to get people killed and pave the way for an authoritarian Christofascist government -- unless we ignore them and get out and vote! And get your likeminded family, friends, and neighbors to vote while you're at it.  Institutions like the corporate media won't save us;  only us mobilizing to vote -- and protecting the vote -- will.