Grab a tissue, folks.
“I write this response with no guarantee they will run it but with full assurance that, if they do, they will publish an accompanying smear in response,” Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson laments in an editorial published by the USA Today network. The op/ed goes on to whine about how the media has been covering his anti-vaccination statement made in the past two weeks, and how his statements jeopardized people’s lives.
Johnson, however, doesn’t see it that way. He sees himself as the victim of a biased media that quoted him accurately when he said that the coronavirus vaccines caused thousands of deaths. (There’s no evidence that the vaccine has caused a single death.) His attempted defense devolved into bitching about the media.
“Mainstream media have abused the trust vested in them by the public. This breach of trust has exacerbated the political divide. Those on the liberal end of the political spectrum can be confident that media will reinforce and promote their beliefs while denigrating and working to marginalize the viewpoint of conservatives,” Johnson wrote. “Knowing their views will not be presented fairly, conservatives become increasingly frustrated and support candidates who fight back.”
In a June 23rd news conference, Johnson spent a good deal of time trying to convince listeners that the vaccine was a dangerous plot to get people to submit to an over-controlling government. Interspersed, he praised Donald Trump for developing the vaccine, claimed the coronavirus wasn’t really a problem anymore (or ever, for that matter), and that Joe Biden has screwed up the response to the virus.
Johnson’s response to the reporting was to hold another press conference. For the second one, he invited five people who experienced complications or symptoms of… something… after they got the vaccine.
“Instead [of covering the stories of the patients Johnson had at his news conference], the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used the occasion to publish a defamatory hit piece they had been working on for months,” Johnson claimed in typically paranoid fashion. And yes, the Journal Sentinel did cover his second press conference.
A frequent guest of Fox News, Newsmax and OAN, Johnson laid out their format: “Media outlets feed off each other. One piece of yellow journalism is used to create another. Before you know it, media have redefined perfectly reasonable and true statements as politically incorrect taboo. And, of course, anyone who has uttered such a newly declared ‘politically incorrect taboo’ is labeled the new Joe McCarthy.” [Or antifa. Or a Soros-funded un-American Marxist Communist Fascist. Or–gasp!–a Democrat!]
Poor Ron Johnson. It’s so sad he doesn’t have a media outlet to cover another press conference accurately.