This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN anchor Dana Bash repeatedly beating GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s comparison of liberal “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) to “a modern grand wizard of the KKK.”
Over more than five minutes, the anchor harangued Ramaswamy, who said he made the comparison to spark a debate over the lawmaker’s suggestion that candidates of color should be in lockstep with liberals.
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After four minutes of her bashing, an exasperated Ramaswamy said: “Dana, I think you’re doing, with due respect, what many in the media do, picking on some fringe comment in the context of a broader context that I was offering in a speech, avoiding the meat of the issue.”
Here’s a sampling from CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday:
DANA BASH: You took issue with comments from Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). She reportedly said, quote, “we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.” About that, you said, “These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.” You know, I’m sure, the KKK was responsible for more than a century’s worth of horrific lynchings, rapes, murders of black people. How in any way are the views you’re talking about comparable to the views and atrocities committed by the KKK?”
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: What I said is: The grand wizards of the KKK would be proud of what they would hear her say, because there’s nothing more racist than saying that your skin color predicts something about the content of your viewpoints or your ideas.
BASH: No, you didn’t just say that. You didn’t just say that they would be proud. You said, “These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.”
RAMASWAMY: It is the same spirit. You’re right about that, Dana. I think it is the same spirit to say that I can look at you and, based on just your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints you’re allowed to express.
….
BASH: But can you have an intellectually honest conversation when you accuse her of being a grand wizard of the KKK? Can you have that intellectually honest discussion with that kind of rhetoric?
….
BASH: If you want to have an intellectual question, do you think that maybe comparing her to the grand wizard and the notion of what she said to being a modern leader of the KKK was maybe a step too far, or you stand by what you said?
….
BASH: What I did was explain to our viewers that you were asked a question and you took it to a point where you called a sitting member of Congress who is black, who was having discussions about race, calling her the modern grand wizard of the KKK. And I’m just not sure how that’s open and honest discussion.
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Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Bash’s constant harping was not good television. Ramaswamy explained his point and she should have moved on. But she so vehemently disagreed with him that she wouldn’t let go. In doing so, she helped prove Ramaswamy’s point about the elite who won’t countenance any contrary views on race relations, not even from the target of a racist attack.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
