Mitch McConnell’s office denounced some of his teenage supporters Tuesday for bad behavior.
Yet reporters, playing along with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, flipped the story. Along the way, the media-AOC conglomerate accused McConnell of dismissing the teens’ actions. The offending youths posed for a photo with a cardboard cutout of Ocasio-Cortez. Two of them pretended to kiss and throttle “her.” All wore “Team Mitch” shirts supporting the Senate Majority Leader.
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The senator’s campaign manager responded Tuesday to the photo. Kevin Golden said in a statement:
These young men are not campaign staff, they’re high schoolers and it’s incredible that the national media has sought to once again paint a target on their backs rather than report real, and significant news in our country. Team Mitch in no way condones any aggressive, suggestive, or demeaning act toward life sized cardboard cut outs of any gender in a manner similar to what we saw from President Obama’s speechwriting staff several years ago.
This is where certain newsrooms intervened to stoke Ocasio-Cortez’s online armies.
The Daily Beast came first with an inaccurate paraphrasing of Golden’s statement.
“Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager essentially says boys will be boys in response to that image of teens groping and choking a cutout of [AOC],” the newsgroup tweeted.
The word “essentially” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Also, this is not what Golden said. Not even close.
Ocasio-Cortez then jumped in, seizing on the Daily Beast’s bogus tweet to attack McConnell. “‘Boys will be boys.’ Is that also the reason why you’ve chosen to block the Violence Against Women act too, @senatemajldr?” she tweeted. “It prevents dating partners w/ records of abuse + stalking women (also an early warning sign from many mass shooters) from obtaining a gun.”
“Boys will be boys.”
Is that also the reason why you’ve chosen to block the Violence Against Women act too, @senatemajldr?
It prevents dating partners w/ records of abuse + stalking women (also an early warning sign from many mass shooters) from obtaining a gun. https://t.co/shWCRmEv60
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 6, 2019
Let’s be clear here: Though it looks like AOC quoted McConnell, she actually quoted the Daily Beast.
Then came Newsweek, repeating the fabrication as if it were fact. “AOC slams McConnell campaign’s ‘boys will be boys’ defense: ‘Boys will be held accountable for their actions,’” it said in its headline.
The Newsweek report also repeats the fake quote.
“Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign on Tuesday for invoking the ‘boys will be boys’ defense in response to a Facebook photo of a young group of men wearing ‘Team Mitch’ t-shirts while choking and groping a cardboard cutout of the lawmaker,” the story claims.
But, but McConnell’s campaign never said that! This is not an ungenerous paraphrasing. It is a lie.
The New York Daily News was not far behind it all. It also reported the fake quote as if it were something that was actually said.
“Mitch McConnell campaign says boys will be boys after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasts disturbing groping pic,” reads the group’s headline on the incident.
The very first line states, “AOC says #TeamMitch is a bunch of dangerous perverts — but his campaign literally says boys will be boys.”
No, the campaign literally never said that. This is the Daily News lying to its readers. It is the opposite of journalism.
For what it is worth, the offending Instagram post, which bore the subtitle “break me off a piece of that,” is gone. The teen who put it online has deleted it and apologized.
“My friends and I sincerely apologize to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Senator McConnell, to our school, St. Jerome Parish, and our community for our insensitive actions at Fancy Farm this past weekend,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets about the since-deleted photo are still online. And many of them still rely on a fake quote.
