It’s one thing to misidentify a public figure’s political affiliation offhandedly during a broader discussion on something relatively bipartisan or, at the very least, not explicitly red-versus-blue. The mistake can always be chalked up to a minor, negligible slip-up.
It’s another thing entirely to make this sort of error in service of a broader narrative that suggests a certain party is guilty of partisan, unethical, hypocritical, or potentially illegal behavior. And this is exactly what NBC’s Andrea Mitchell did this week when she claimed falsely that the woman at the center of the Florida Senate and gubernatorial recounts is a registered Republican.
“We should also point out that Brenda Snipes in Broward County is a Republican, appointed by a former governor, then-Gov. Jeb Bush,” said Mitchell during a segment on the recount efforts spearheaded by Democratic Senate incumbent Bill Nelson and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.
NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent continued, saying, “So [Snipes] was put in by a Republican governor after the mess that we all remember from 2000. And she’s hardly a Democratic official or someone doing the bidding of the Democratic candidates there.”
This is just plain wrong — embarrassing, even. The only thing Mitchell got right is that Snipes was appointed by Bush in 2003 to replace someone fired for incompetence.
Snipes is a Democrat. She is listed as a Democrat, and she was elected to office as a Democrat. Snipes has always been a Democrat. Also, in case you were wondering, the Republican who appointed Snipes to that role has since said she should be “removed from office” for having “failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts” and “undermining Floridians confidence in our electoral process.”
Again, if it were just a small mistake, it’d be exactly that: A small mistake. But Mitchell claiming Snipes is a Republican furthers a broader narrative that suggests the recount efforts are on the up-and-up and that any conservative who says otherwise is actually battling his own team. It’s as if to say, “Hey, even Republicans think this recount episode is legitimate!” That’s not a small mistake. That’s a major falsehood that helps advance a partisan storyline.
This is like the time MSNBC’s graphics department managed somehow to misidentify noted Democrat and super racist Gov. George Wallace as a Republican. The difference here is that the Wallace slip-up might have been just a slip-up, not a falsehood meant to advance a bigger — and less flattering — point about one of the two major parties.
Still, it’s a real mystery that these mistakes always seem to point in one direction.
