Alana Goodman over at the Contentions blog can stand to watch Christiane Amanpour’s version of This Week. Good for her. She’s got a tougher stomach than I do, and she calls out Amanpour for misreporting the overwhelming tenor of Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent townhall meetings.
You have to give ABC’s Christiane Amanpour props for her aggressive effort to push the media narrative that Rep. Paul Ryan is facing a “backlash” from constituents over his budget plan.
“[T]own halls across America erupt in anger over a plan to slash spending,” the host ofThis Week began her program on Sunday.
But the rest of the show–which had Amanpour visiting Ryan’s town hall meetings–debunked her entire premise. She went to Wisconsin and found what many others have already reported. The crowds are largely friendly, despite dishonestly-edited videos from left-wing groups that purport otherwise.
But don’t let you think that stopped Amanpour’s narrative.
Despite the reality on the ground, Amanpour resiliently stuck to her narrative. “Congressman Ryan is at the center of the storm,” she insisted. “It’s his plan, of course, that has sparked the outcries. Across the country, the anger is palpable.”
Of course. The liberal MSM must feed its fantasy that a “new” and “genuine” grassroots movement of “ordinary Americans” are coming out in droves to protest the “mean” cuts proposed by Republicans like Ryan.
As John McCormack expains at The Weekly Standard that despite how Think Progress selectively edited a Ryan townhall meeting to sell a narrative in which “the anger is palpable,” Ryan nonetheless “won the recess.” (Photo above courtesy of that TWS blog post.)
