***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
By now, you’ve undoubtedly seen the disgusting 9/11 comments made by anti-Semite Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-D) before the terrorism-supporting Council on American Islamic Relations. Well, during Sunday’s so-called Reliable Sources, CNN host and media dung-sweeper Brian Stelter defended her while denouncing conservative media for cooking up the controversy. He likened it to “an arsonist lighting a match”.
In a segment that sought to explain how controversies were cooked up (seemingly only from the right), Stelter walked his few viewers through how he supposed Omar’s comments were pounced on (click “expand”):
Omar gave a speech to the Council on American Islamic Relations, last month. Her focus was on the importance of protecting American civil liberties. The speech didn’t really get picked up at the time. But then, last Monday, the conservative website, The Daily Caller – co-founded by Tucker Carlson – picked up on Omar's reference to the 9/11 hijackers. She said, quote, “some people did something” while arguing that all Muslims should not be punished for the action of a crazy few.
So, The Daily Caller posted four minutes of video to YouTube. Then an Australian man who calls himself a Muslim scholar and is very active on Twitter set the frame for a week's worth of news conference. The framing – you can see here – is that Omar was downplaying 9/11. His tweet took off and it spread to right-wing website. It was all over these sites by Tuesday. Then, on Tuesday night, Sean Hannity brought the video to television. He covered it on Tuesday night. And then, come Wednesday, Fox and Friends was all over it. Brian Kilmeade was questioning Omar's patriotism. This went on and on for days and days. Then on Thursday, this was the cover of the New York Post.
“‘Some people did something.’ Four words. Probably not the best choice of words. It’s easy for me to sit here and say I would have chosen different words. Right,” he shrugged, giving her the biggest of breaks.
(...)