If the Washington Post’s “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler needs to check something, it should probably be checking into the witness protection program for stupid journalism after this.
Everyone. Everyone who saw Mike Bloomberg’s funny ad after his debut at the Democratic debate knew this spot was meant to be sarcastic. Did I say “everyone”? Wait, check that, Glenn Kessler took it seriously.
This is exactly what Kessler and people like him have been doing to Donald Trump every day of his presidency. Trump jokes, cajoles, jawbones and exaggerates to make simple points and the media labels the hyperbole – not the underlying point – as “lies.”
Kessler and others are probably the same people who believe Trump is still a “Russian asset” even after two investigations showed that was not just hyperbole, but outright fabrication bought and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton and spread by the spying Obama administration. Somehow they don’t “fact-check” that.
But now Kessler has reared back, put his opposable thumbs in the belt loops of his putty-colored Dockers and stared down Mini Mike. Whipping out his laptop, he pounds out two words reserved only for his enemies. He plants a period and slowly hits publish. Squinting at the horizon for a long moment, he reflects. Somewhere, far away, the peal of an eagle is heard. Reacquiring his target, he intones: “Four Pinocchios.”
Mini Mike jumps off his box and, running toward him, screeches “Nooooo! Not that!”
The Washington Post described the video as “manipulated” and so decreed that it was the least truthy of all truthiness on its truth detector.
ICYMI –> Bloomberg’s manipulated debate video earns Four Pinocchios https://t.co/1f5Ohr5xQw
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) February 21, 2020
Here’s the original Bloomberg ad.
Anyone? pic.twitter.com/xqhq5qFYVk
— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) February 20, 2020
Did you see the sleight-of-hand editing going on? We’ll bet you did. And it was funny. But Kessler wrote:
Iowahawk thought Kessler had undergone sense-of-humor bypass surgery:
ICYMI- every single sentient human being who saw it immediately recognized it as such https://t.co/MyVbWsxibk
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 21, 2020
Two options here: either they believe you are this stupid, or THEY are this stupid pic.twitter.com/q1xEZDKuum
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 21, 2020
Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller believed Kessler could go to work on another Bloomberg ad that has actual intentional factual inaccuracies in it and is intended to be a serious political ad:
Another reminder that while MSNBC reporters are freaking out about an obviously edited Bloomberg campaign video on Twitter, MSNBC is airing a Bloomberg ad in which he falsely claims he guided NYC through 9/11. https://t.co/joaP7tNSQB
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 21, 2020
Or this one:
I truly don't understand why you thought this joke ad was worth fact checking when you haven't fact checked Bloomberg's Super Bowl ad which featured an outright lie and left out several key details of the story it relayed. https://t.co/SMRxGYV503
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 21, 2020
Or how about that “dogs like me” Bloomberg ad? Somebody should fact-check those talking dogs, says PJ Media’s Jim Treacher:
We need a ruling on this manipulated video too, Glenn. How can Bloomberg get away with this? https://t.co/gCzOlqpJHr
— China is lying (@jtLOL) February 21, 2020
Hale Razor wins this round:
The fact that a half-dozen talkative egomaniacs were completely silent for a minute on national TV may have been the tell. #OrTheCrickets
— Razor (@hale_razor) February 21, 2020
Indeed it was a tell. Someone should tell the “fact” checker.
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