Opinion

Seven Reporters Who Should NOT Get A Press Pass In 2016

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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If the Republican candidates in the 2016 race were smarter, they would ban a number of liberal Washington-based reporters from any of their campaign events, just like Hillary Clinton did to my former editor David Martosko. Why not? The seven kids below are not there to cover the events, but rather to just act as operatives.

I moved to Washington, D.C. years ago thinking I’d join a press corps that aspires to get to the truth, to push the envelope with challenging ideas, and to hold powerful people accountable. NOPE. Instead, I found a media comprised of twentysomething liberal rich white kids with hyphenated last names getting paid to push the agenda of billionaire progressive ideologues.

Some D.C. reporter kids get paid to actively target or otherwise smear Republican politicians or conservative commentators. Some D.C. reporter kids merely try to get by. They go on television to recite idiotic propaganda couched in the construction of political punditry: “There’s a real divide right now in the Republican Party between those who want to serve the interests of the One Percent and those who feel that the party should focus more on discriminating against gays.”

Whatever. Here are the worst Democratic suckups currently getting their hands ready.

1. Dave Weigel:

Portly reporter Dave Weigel is the personification of journalistic malpractice, and the reason I came up with the idea to do this list. Formerly The Washington Post’s “Right Turn” blogger, Weigel got his ass canned from the Post after The Daily Caller and Betsy Rothstein published private emails that Weigel sent on the “JournoList” listserv, a private group for left-wing mainstream reporters to conspire about how to manipulate news coverage. Weigel wished death upon Rush Limbaugh and savaged tea partiers and conservative media and politicians.

Weigel’s scandal not only tarnished his own reputation, it highlighted the insular conspiracy at the heart of the mainstream media, confirming every conservative’s worst fears about how the media is actually run. Today, Weigel divides time between writing low-traffic pieces that D.C. reporters read and tweeting for an audience of D.C. reporters, who take cues from him about how to more effectively disparage conservatives.

But now Weigel is being RE-HIRED by the Post for 2016 coverage, because apparently they forgot about his disgrace or something? Welcome to journalism in 2015, folks.

Fortunately, it’s not too hard to keep Weigel out of your rallies. All you’ll need is a diversionary box of Krispy Kremes or a decoy to strike up a conversation with him about his favorite and most disgusting fetish. It’s truly repulsive.

2. Amanda Terkel

It probably says something when the Hillary Clinton campaign retweets and adds to the starry-eyed “reporting” of Huffington Post politics editor Amanda Terkel like some kind of banal feminist call-and-response chorus.

Terkel is a progressive apparatchik, formerly of the Center for American Progress. Basically, she is to journalism what…well, what The Huffington Post is to journalism. In other words: not a journalist.

3. Wesley Lowery:

You’ve got to hand it to Washington Post social justice reporter Wesley Lowery. Technically born a white person, multiracial Lowery has nevertheless fashioned himself as the voice of the black community, traveling to Ferguson, Missouri, to stoke tensions by intentionally getting himself arrested. His career since then has mostly been undistinguished, as the Post didn’t even initially send him to Baltimore when riots were breaking out. Lowery is self-obsessed and obnoxious.

He’s a liberal operative, sure, but he shouldn’t be too hard to keep outside the rope line. Just hold up a mirror in front of him and he’ll be lost in a trance for days.

4. Alex Seitz-Wald

Recently, something very disturbing happened that completely encapsulates everything you need to know about Washington, D.C. MSNBC campaign reporter Alex Seitz-Wald attended the wedding of Clinton campaign aide Adam Parkhomenko. Then he and the other reporters there posed in a little tableau that a former Ready For Hillary staffer posted to social media with the lame tagline “Press scrum!!”

Awwww, isn’t that cute? It’s like a parody of a “press scrum,” which happens when reporters do their jobs, but instead it’s a bunch of fake reporters documenting their self-satisfaction and the obvious smoke and mirrors of modern American campaign “coverage.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. Seitz-Wald will have a prominent career in Washington media. He’s got the hyphenated last name, he’s got the light beard, he’s got the whiny holier-than-thou voice, he’s got the lack of charisma. But there’s really no reason for any Republican to let him near any campaign events. I know it might be hard to distinguish him from the other reporters because he looks exactly the same, but keep him out. He’s not a reporter, he’s a Clinton supporter. I mean, we can all pretend otherwise. Or we can just tell the truth, right? Come on.

5. Anyone From CNN

(RELATED: The Daily Caller Reviews ‘Crossfire’).

So the CNN network grabbed Hillary Clinton’s first national interview of the 2016 race. The Brianna Keilar interview was so softball it made Larry King look like Ed Murrow. CNN also gave Hillary the chance to do a town hall last year to plug her pre-campaign book.

Hey, speaking of Larry King, remember in 1992 when King got caught on a hot mic telling presidential contender Bill Clinton that CNN founder Ted Turner would “serve” him after he gets elected? Remember that? Coverage of the exchange has mostly been relegated to the alternative press. But, hoo boy, there’s a reason they called it the “Clinton News Network.”

6. Andrew Kaczynski

I’m not going to link to Buzzfeed, and I’m not going to actually waste my time reciting the inane, pointless, anti-Republican hit pieces that Buzzfeed YouTube sleuth Andrew Kazakahammer (is that right?) posts to that inane, pointless, anti-Republican website. So, I will just make up some headlines that could have been posted by him, and you get the idea.

Enjoy This Video Of Mike Huckabee In A Wig and Dress Costume Singing Cher

18 Photos That Show Jeb and George Bush Might Be Brothers

That Time Jeb Bush Did A Radio Segment Between ‘Lesbian Tuesday’ and ‘No Panties Thursday.’

Actually, those are real ones from just the last couple of days. The only thing I think about when I think about this Kazafahameyer kid is what a journalistic veteran friend of mine once said, looking down non-plussed at some Buzzfeed post: “Why does D.C. always attract the most pathetic people?”

Good question. Put that one in listicle form.

7. Sabrina Rubin Erdely

Did you know that the top eight Republican candidates gang-raped a college student at a GOP dinner? No, that didn’t happen? Wait a second. I guess I need to stop reading Rolling Stone….

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