Limbaugh obituaries show the mainstream media still fawning over the people who poisoned politics

#Texas #TEDCRUZ #RAT running away needs to RESIGN #TedCruzRESIGN #TedCruzFailedTexas #TedCancunCruz #TedCruzRESIGN #QGOP Pro Death Party #TexasWinterStorm2021 QAnonNRA’KKKGOPValues 101
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-storm-cancun.html

Limbaugh obituaries show the mainstream media still fawning over the people who poisoned politics
https://presswatchers.org/2021/02/limbaugh-obituaries-show-the-mainstream-media-still-fawning-over-the-people-who-poisoned-politics/

An important critique via @froomkin on the inclination to provide a soothing massage of Limbaugh’s racist, misogynistic rhetoric.

conservative provocateur = asshole

An unthinking adherence to a poorly conceived “objectivity” has resulted in a national media stubbornly lacking any principals that would give folks reason to trust them.

Pathetic to see the solemn praise of such a vile bigot.

How come @BetoORourke and @AOC work to raise money for struggling Texans, many of whom didn’t vote for Beto and think AOC is a she-witch, doesn’t count as a UNITY story? How come the media isn’t spinning it that way? How come “unity” can only mean “giving the GOP what it wants”?

Major media finally turned against Trump — but keeps on normalizing the culture of hatred that made him possible

In the ensuing months, even the most stubbornly aloof mainstream news organizations began to publicly acknowledge Trump as a liar, a failure, a loser, and an inciter of division and violence.

But calling out the hatred and bigotry that are now firmly established as the central tenets of the modern Republican Party remains a step too far. Our newsroom leaders still cannot bring themselves to declare that the hysteria and conspiracy theories that once inhabited only the lunatic fringes of our political discourse – until Rush Limbaugh, and then Donald Trump, came along – don’t merit respect, but banishment, rejection, and denial.

And that is why, even with a year to prewrite and edit, major media outlets on Wednesday published obituaries celebrating Limbaugh’s extraordinary success as a “conservative provocateur.” They whitewashed his once-unimaginably vile and divisive demagoguery as “comic bombast.” They hailed him as “the voice of American conservatism,” when what really matters about Rush Limbaugh is that he spread hatred more effectively and lucratively than any American before him. He didn’t hide his bigotry, and, thanks to him, neither, eventually, did the Republican Party.
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Let’s be clear: if a Democrat had done what Ted Cruz did in ANY state going through what Texas is experiencing and then lied about it through a formal press release, then got caught lying about it with evidence, they would be resigning by Friday. he part that still really caps it for me is asking for Houston PD to be there at the airport to protect him from the rabble hecklers. IN THE MIDDLE OF A DISASTER. As if they didn’t have stuff to do.

Our top news organizations can’t level with readers about Cruz’s Cancun getaway. It’s not a “blunder” or a “mistake”; it’s not about “fury” or a “backlash”; it’s about his character and how plainly it showed that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Why can’t they say that? He unwittingly unmasked his utter lack of empathy or personal responsibility. He is exposed to all, more viscerally than ever before.

If Big Journalism doesn’t put this direct attack on a pillar of democracy relentlessly near the top of its agenda, it will have failed once again. The standard, sporadic coverage of this outrage is not nearly enough.

Please, journalists, pay attention.