The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

MSNBC: The Network America Turns to for Irresponsible Speculation About News

Posted on | April 14, 2013 | 50 Comments

You can call Chris Matthews anything you want — “dimwitted political hack” would be entirely appropriate — but please don’t insult an entire profession by calling Chris Matthews a “journalist.”

On March 30, Kaufman County, Texas, district attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were shot to death at their home. Five days later, Chris Matthews invited Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center onto MSNBC to promote speculation that McLelland’s murder was committed by the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang.

In other words, the important thing about this crime — the thing that made it worth eight minutes of national network air time — was that it gave Chris Matthews a chance to stoke the paranoia of MSNBC viewers with the bogeyman specter of dangerously violent racists who (as all MSNBC viewers know) are the core constituency of the Republican Party.

Fast-forward 11 days, and Chris Matthews is completely discredited by the latest headlines:

What? It wasn’t scary white supremacists highlighted in an eight-minute MSNBC segment? Nobody that Mark Potok warned us about? Not even a Tea Party member? No, a disgraced lawyer with a personal grudge:

A former justice of the peace who had been prosecuted for stealing computers was arrested Saturday on charges of sending threatening e-mails to officials in Kaufman County, Texas. Authorities are reportedly prepared to charge disgraced lawyer Eric Lyle Williams, 46, with three murders that had inflamed fears that members of a white supremacist prison gang were targeting law enforcement officials.
Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, 63, and his wife, Cynthia McLelland, 65, were shot to death two weeks ago at their home, two months after Assistant District Attorney Mark E. Hasse, 57, was shot to death in a parking lot near the county courthouse. Haase had prosecuted Williams last year, and McLelland had told investigators that they should focus on Williams as a suspect in Haase’s murder.
Williams’s law license was suspended after he was convicted of the theft charges. He was arrested early Saturday and is being held in the Kaufman County jail on $3 million bond. Williams will be charged with three counts of capital murder, Dallas CBS affiliate KTVT reported, citing unnamed sources. . . .

Read the whole thing at Viral Read, and don’t ever try to tell me that Chris Matthews is a “journalist.” That’s an insult.

UPDATE: KFAA-TV in Houston reports the latest news that MSNBC and Chris Matthews will ignore:

News 8 has learned that 20 weapons were recovered from a unit at a Seagoville self-storage locker in connection with the unsolved Kaufman County murders.
Sources said the locker had been rented on behalf of former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams, who is curently jailed on unrelated charges.
A source tells News 8 federal investigators are conducting ballistics tests on the weapons, which are similar to those used to kill Kaufman County prosecutor Mark Hasse on January 31 and District Attorney Mike McClelland and his wife Cynthia, who were found dead at their home on March 30.
Sources said investigators also seized a Ford Crown Victoria sedan from the storage facility that was allegedly purchased by Williams back in February under a false name.
Sources said they have surveillance video of that vehicle driving into and out of the McLellands’ neighborhood on the day they were slain.

Remember: Murders are only important to MSNBC when they can be exploited to advance a political agenda.

Chris Matthews won’t say another word about this case — unless it can be proven that Eric Williams is a Republican.

UPDATE II: Ed Driscoll quotes Buffalo Springfield (a rock band from the Sixties, in case you youngsters were wondering) and I believe the word for this is, “Heh”:

UPDATE III: Headline by Doug Hagin at Daley Gator:

MSNBC: When you want your
news completely fabricated

Patterico is on the story, which is now a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE IV: Linked by Moe Lane — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!

Meanwhile, I’ve added a new post: How the Left’s Online Meme Machine Helped Create a Murder Myth in Texas

 

 


Category: Crime, Media Bias, MSNBC, Texas

Comments

50 Responses to “MSNBC: The Network America Turns to for Irresponsible Speculation About News”

  1. Conservatexian
    April 14th, 2013 @ 3:47 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM MSNBC: The Network America Turns to for Irresponsible Speculation About News http://t.co/jLfXJhioMJ #TCOT

  2. Conservatexian
    April 14th, 2013 @ 3:48 pm

    @smitty_one_each Agree that Tingles should not be confused with a journalist in any way shape or form. He is a lying face on a BS network.

  3. AnthonyAbides
    April 14th, 2013 @ 3:56 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM MSNBC: The Network America Turns to for Irresponsible Speculation About News http://t.co/jLfXJhioMJ #TCOT

  4. WJJ Hoge
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:10 pm

    But if Bill Schmalfeldt can claim to be a journalist, surely … Oh, never mind.

  5. Maypo
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:30 pm

    Geraldo Rivera also pushed the “white supremacist” line on his national radio show. Pathetic.

  6. David Powell
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:50 pm

    To be fair the fact these murders happened around the same time as the murder of the Bureau of Prisons guy in Colorado, speculation ran rampant. I was wondering if it was a Mexican Cartel myself. Hope they have the right guy on this case and that they nail him to the wall.

  7. bobbymike34
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:57 pm

    Look at the picture the guy is white therefore he is racist. In future all white crime will be hate crime because all whites are racist thank you MSNBC.

  8. bobbymike34
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:58 pm

    Question I am white is it a hate crime to want to punch Mark Potok in the face? Just asking.

  9. Ed Driscoll » Paranoia Strikes Deep
    April 14th, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

    […] NBC’s Chris Matthews once responded to an incident involving Rand Paul by saying that “it reminds me of the ’30s in another country.” But then, everything reminds Chris Matthews of the 1930s in another country, a mindset which recently led to wild on-air speculation, fueled by the help of  — who else? — the Southern “Poverty” Law Center, as Stacy McCain writes: […]

  10. MNSBC: When you want your news completely fabricated | The Daley Gator
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:24 pm

    […] Stacy McCain lays into Crazy legs Matthews and his penchant for being RONGG! […]

  11. robertstacymccain
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:42 pm

    White or not, the urge to punch Mark Potok in the face is pretty much ubiquitous.

  12. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:52 pm

    The reality of the matter [which the Left will never tell you] is that if you read the manifestos of groups like the Aryan Brotherhood you will find they are Leftists.

  13. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:53 pm

    True, but that’s not the point Stacy is making.

  14. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:53 pm

    Just look at it! That’s a face that demands to be punched.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2013 @ 5:54 pm

    The shape of your face reflects your personality.

  16. Kerry Dar-Du
    April 14th, 2013 @ 6:27 pm

    Kerry Dar-Du liked this on Facebook.

  17. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 14th, 2013 @ 6:41 pm

    The last time I wanted to punch someone this much was when Howard Dean was stinking up the airwaves with his obnoxious mug/campaign.

  18. Moe Lane » News flash: Texas district attorneys NOT murdered by Aryan Brotherhood.
    April 14th, 2013 @ 6:43 pm

    […] Matthews, MSNBC, Southern Poverty Law Center hardest hit.  They were, shall we say, really pumped at the idea that there might be a bunch of allegedly right-wing criminal fanatics out there […]

  19. Rosalie
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:05 pm

    They certainly live in their own little world at MSNBC. I’ve come to the conclusion that liberals rationalize their lives away. They’re pathetic.

  20. jsn2
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:08 pm

    Potoks’ nose is a logical target since he is a mouth breather according to the accompanying photo.

  21. Garym
    April 14th, 2013 @ 8:36 pm

    Just make sure he leaves the glasses on.

  22. Too Old To Work
    April 14th, 2013 @ 9:16 pm

    Maybe they should just change the name of his show from Hardball to Nutball. Truth in advertising, you know.

  23. K-Bob
    April 14th, 2013 @ 10:27 pm

    The guy on the right in that splitscreen looks like an SNL character.

  24. Thucydides_of_Athens
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:04 pm

    Ask for Chris Matthews and his show to be moved from MSNBC to SyFy. It seems to be a better fit.

  25. bggatbdl
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:23 pm

    The story might have been fake, but it was accurate. The facts MIT have been wrong, but the narrative was right. We need to stop blaming Islamists and drug cartels for everything when the real threat are the Aryan Nations and the Jesus freaks.

  26. Diogenes Le Pétomane
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:39 pm

    apparently, he did run as a Republican: “No Democrats faced contested primary races, but Sarah Whitaker was re-elected as party chairman while incumbent Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Johnny Perry and County Clerk candidate Sophia Clemon each earned their party’s nomination for the general election. In November, Perry will face a challenge from Republican Eric Williams while Clemon will seek to unseat incumbent Laura Hughes, a Republican.” http://www.kaufmanherald.com/news/article_b9db40e5-806a-5880-a7f4-80261945c17d.html

  27. Any A. Mouse
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:39 pm

    WFAA (8) is the Belo station in Dallas. KHOU (11) is the Belo station in Houston. Never heard of KFAA before.

  28. David Block
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:40 pm

    KFAA? There’s a WFAA in Dallas. Don’t know about a KFAA. It’s a radio station in North Dakota.

  29. Adjoran
    April 15th, 2013 @ 12:09 am

    Simple misunderstanding: Chrissie isn’t a “journalist” in the traditional sense, he’s a “journ-o-list-er” par excellence. Of course, the goals of the secret media cabal founded by Ezra “The Poor Man’s Goebbels” Klein have nothing to do with facts or truth, but only in twisting them to fit the political needs of the left.

    Similarly, no rational and informed person takes the raving of the likes of Deese shill Potok seriously, they understand it is just another complimentary infomercial for SPLC. Since they were still raising the specter of the KKK to raise money for more than a decade after the Klan was effectively dead, they’ve had to move on to work in the “Aryan Nation”/White Supremacists/Militia Movement angle on every appearance.

    It’s all about scaring loose the purse strings of rich white liberals, that’s all.

  30. How the Left’s Online Meme Machine Helped Create a Murder Myth in Texas : The Other McCain
    April 15th, 2013 @ 12:53 am

    […] later, which gave Mark Potok a chance to go on MSNBC, but I guarantee you that Martin Bashir and Chris Matthews won’t say another word about this crime now that we know the truth. Because they don’t […]

  31. Biff Ludwig
    April 15th, 2013 @ 1:09 am

    So what is the connection/relationship between Eric Williams, Chris Matthews, and the SPLC? Just asking questioons here!

  32. Crook Ofraud
    April 15th, 2013 @ 2:32 am

    you punch him I’ll chop his head off and then we can piss on him and pour some manure on his dead body, then take him out to a field where some vultures are and dispose of the body that goes for the entire network of bsnbc even rich madcow the commie whore bitch

  33. herddog505
    April 15th, 2013 @ 4:56 am

    Sort of reminds me of the Duke lacrosse rape case.
    “It was the white guys!”

  34. K-Bob
    April 15th, 2013 @ 6:11 am

    So many lines crossed in so few words.

  35. Whitney Hanson
    April 15th, 2013 @ 7:47 am

    Has it gotten so bad that Chris Matthews is interviewing SNL cast members about current events? Pretty sure that’s Bill Hader on the right.

  36. Links | Gucci Little Piggy
    April 15th, 2013 @ 8:00 am

    […] was behind the shootings which is something that MSNBC and The Southern Law Poverty Center have been pushing pretty hard.  Doesn’t matter for SPLC because they probably reached funding goals after spreading that […]

  37. Larry E
    April 15th, 2013 @ 8:35 am

    Thufferin’ thuccotash!

    Slobbering Chris Matthews lets the contents of his tiny little “mind” out on the American public, and once again his demented fairy tales turn out to be nothing but paranoia and character assassination. Once again he’s proved to be a demented, lying guttersnipe.

    On the Southern Poverty law Center, I recommend the current issue of the Weekly Standard, with their article “King of Fearmongers.” They basically say, Morris Dees is and was more interested in money and the main chance than law or justice.

  38. Anchortowny
    April 15th, 2013 @ 9:08 am

    You didn’t even mention that NPR spent an hour of national radio time blaming the prison gangs for the murder on their “Talk of the Nation” show.

  39. John J Trainor
    April 15th, 2013 @ 9:20 am

    Can’t say it often enough, the left is insane, more so Matthews & Mark Potok. No evidence at all penetrates their shrivelled, diseased, remnants of a brain. Sick and dangerous because LittleLeftists, looney themselves, take them seriously.

  40. The PJ Tatler » Did the Southern Poverty Law Center Misdirect Media, Law Enforcement in the Texas DA Murders?
    April 15th, 2013 @ 9:48 am

    […] later, which gave Mark Potok a chance to go on MSNBC, but I guarantee you that Martin Bashir and Chris Matthews won’t say another word about this crime now that we know the truth. Because they don’t give a […]

  41. mikegiles
    April 15th, 2013 @ 10:16 am

    MSNBC. So low they can even make the Aryan Brotherhood look like victims!

  42. MSNBC | Junior Ganymede
    April 15th, 2013 @ 10:57 am

    […] All the news that’s fit to wildly speculate about.     […]

  43. Scribe of Slog (McGehee)
    April 15th, 2013 @ 11:31 am

    Stacy, I think you misspelled “journOlist.”

  44. HeftyJo
    April 15th, 2013 @ 1:08 pm

    I knew the moment they started talking about the Aryan Botherhood that it was just an attempt to sensationalize the story. And of course it has to be a far right racist group that instantly gets fingered as the culprit.

  45. Da Tech Guy's Blog » Blog Archive » Very Quick Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Blasts
    April 15th, 2013 @ 5:57 pm

    […] 5. Appar­ently Chris Matthews hasn’t learned much from his suc­cess con­cern­ing the shoot­ings in Texas. […]

  46. Quartermaster
    April 15th, 2013 @ 7:54 pm

    Repeatedly!

  47. Ed Driscoll » Old Media Botches Story, Plays Victim Card
    April 17th, 2013 @ 5:10 pm

    […] you can’t simultaneously, publicly loathe us (see also: Everyone at MSNBC, and Piers Morgan, Anderson Cooper, and the recently departed Soledad O’Brien at CNN), and […]

  48. Hatchetman
    April 18th, 2013 @ 8:31 am

    Facts are not important to Matthews and his ilk. According to Homeland Security’s own report, from 1970 to 2008, there were 58 terrorist attacks in the U.S. linked to right wing groups. However, there were 364 linked to left wing groups in the same time period. But the liars and criminals who masquerade as the mainstream news media willfully and maliciously suppress that fact.

  49. Hijacking crises for fun and profit « Hot Air
    April 18th, 2013 @ 12:00 pm

    […] this week, the murders of two Texas DAs and one of their spouses had been exploited by news media, especially MSNBC, as either evidence of a rising wave of white-supremacist violence, Mexican drug cartels declaring […]

  50. Looking Like a Fool To Me - Not the Singularity - Not the Singularity
    April 18th, 2013 @ 5:23 pm

    […] this week, the murders of two Texas DAs and one of their spouses had been exploited by news media, especially MSNBC, as either evidence of a rising wave of white-supremacist violence, Mexican drug cartels declaring […]