If we've done anything successfully in the last nine years, C&L has proven without a shadow of a doubt the conservative projection phenomena. Anything that conservatives accuse the other side of doing is because they themselves are guilty of it. So Freedomworks-funded Rush Limbaugh can accuse liberals of taking Soros' paychecks (still waiting for mine, George) without even the slightest evidence of cognitive dissonance. Or you can hear every single Republican parrot talking points crafted by Heritage and Grover Norquist on the Sunday news shows.
Sadly or not, depending on your point of view, there isn't this kind of infrastructure on the liberal side. But that doesn't stop openly partisan hack Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post from dismissing Take Action News' David Shuster bringing facts to the coordinated 'outrage' with the accusation that he is merely saying "Media Matters talking points".
SHUSTER: The overall Republican point here that the Obama administration was trying to protect the State Department. The Obama administration trying to protect the State Department and that the White House was somehow trying to characterize the talking points or change the talking points in order to minimize political damage.
That Republican -- that Republican idea is just flat out wrong. This turns out to be a boring set of e-mails where simply CIA and State Department officials are --
RUBIN: All right, you had your speech coming out of the administration.
KURTZ: David, Jennifer --
RUBIN: Very nice to have the Media Matters talking points recited out of David's lips.
SHUSTER: What are you talking? What are you talking about, Jane?
RUBIN: Howard. If you want to hear me, fine.
(CROSSTALK)
SHUSTER: Let somebody from Media Matters --
KURTZ: Let's assume that everybody is giving their own views and you may disagree with them.
RUBIN: No, they're actually on Media Matters. These exact comments are coming out of Media Matters. Absolutely.
KURTZ: OK.
SHUSTER: Well, I don't talk to Media Matters. Jennifer, that's an unfair accusation for you to make. But the bottom line is, the Republican argument in all of this is flat out wrong --
Does Bill O'Reilly know that Rubin is stealing his shtick? It's so pathetic that Rubin actually asks Kurtz to "mute" Shuster.
And of course, it needs not be said that Rubin is doing nothing more than distracting from the real scandal for partisan advantage. Jonathan Karl was absolutely wrong because he failed at the most basic of journalistic skills. All he did was take the word of a Republican operative and regurgitate it without even a bit of fact checking or confirmation. They tried the same thing with Major Garrett and Jake Tapper, who were able to see through it. But this is kind of lazy journalism that Karl does regularly.
