MSNBC Wants You to Know That That Hillary Document Dump Came from an "Anti-Clinton" "Rightwing" "Website"

Update: Gabe is now live at HuffPo, answering questions about socialized law.

The Washington Free Beacon had a noteworthy scoop about "The Hillary Papers," and, as AllahPundit says, the new information itself cannot be discredited.

So what is MSNBC to do? Well, as they are unable to impeach the actual information, they will just relentlessly impeach the publisher. The below supercut was compiled by the Washington Free Beacon itself, and is amusing.

Well, it's superficially amusing. When you think about it, it's pretty alarming.

Is this what it's come down to? The media used to have at least an interest in preserving their credibility; this would serve to restrain, somewhat, their partisan and ideological leanings.

But on MSNBC -- and increasingly in all the other leftwing media as well -- they are abandoning any restraint at all.

However, some still seem willing to call out their fellow progressives for getting ridiculous about it all. Dylan Byers of Politico, for example, posted this tweet:

He's not joining in on the "right-wing" "anti-Clinton" "website" party, I'm 99% sure. He is directly quoting from Joe Klein -- Joe Klein actually says that, all those scare-quotes and all, in the article he's linking. So this seems to be Dylan Byers' offering a "Come on, dude" bit of chiding to Joe Klein.

But meanwhile, at MSNBC, the party is in high gear, led by Mistress of Ceremonies Andrea Mitchell, a real reporter, you know.

This brings up a question I've been wondering about a lot:

In the old days, we would complain about media bias. We strongly preferred an unbiased media, but as a second-best option, we often said things like, "They can be as biased as they like, as long as they admit their bias." If you inform the public of your bias, you've disclosed your conflict of interest. So that can be said to be fair disclosure.

Of course, the media is not willing to confess it has a bias. But in MSNBC's case, the bias is so brazen and ridiculous that one could say it's essentially admitted, even if they continue, when asked, to insist they are "non-partisan."

So the question presented is, "Were we right when we thought it would be better if the media just confessed their bias?"

Because, having seen what it looks like, I'm not so sure it is better. MSNBC is simply taking this as a liberation to be as crudely partisan as possible.

posted by Ace at 03:04 PM

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