In case you missed it last night, ABC ran an hour-long pro-gun control commercial disguised as a news broadcast. The most hilarious part was a profile of the National Rifle Association’s disagreement with Bart Stupak, a Michigan House Democrat who until recently voted with the NRA 100 percent of the time. Then he voted for an inane anti-gun show bill that would have required all gun sellers at gun shows to run 72 hour background checks.
The NRA argued 72 hours checks would have killed gun shows; Stupak says they wouldn’t. Either Stupak doesn’t understand the bill he voted for (which failed, thankfully) or he doesn’t understand gun shows.
Anyway, the interesting thing was how Jennings and ABC chose to portray this as the big, bad horrible NRA vs. the likable, reasonable Stupak. While they gave Stupak plenty of air time to make his case, and spent time debunking the NRA’s claims, it gave almost no time to the NRA to offer an alternative position (in fact ABC simply assumed Stupak was right). Jennings intoned about how Stupak lost the NRA’s support even though he disagreed with them on only “a single vote” to lose their support.
It is hard to imagine ABC giving similar treatment to another civil rights organization. Imagine a member of Congress receiving money from a pro-abortion group, who at some point decides to vote in favor of banning partial birth abortions. Does anybody think for a second that if women’s groups decide to stop giving this Congress person money because of this single vote that this would even make national news, much less be the centerpiece of a pro-life screed in prime time attacking the pro-abortion lobby?
I think not.