Rocky Mountain News columnist Jason Salzman writes for his Big Media blog, having reached Jon “Dildo Art” Caldara himself earlier today:
The Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara is outraged that the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post covered the “swastika guy” hugging nationally syndicated columnist Michele Malkin at Caldara’s anti-stimulus rally at the Colorado Capitol yesterday.
“The idea that the media would take this spun story, about some guy who stands up next to Michele Malkin, somehow that’s a story?” Caldara told me. “I looked at the photos, and there was a photo of [the swastika guy] standing next to another guy holding a sign that also said Obama but instead of a swastika, it had a hammer and sickle. That one didn’t seem to rile anybody even though many fold more died under the symbol of a hammer and sickle than a swastika. But that doesn’t get the same sort of media rage, and if you’re looking at this from a media point of view, I would hope in all honesty you would criticize the media for biting on such a transparent attack ploy.”
Reporters at Caldara’s rally saw some weird things. They saw a live pig. They saw a roasted pig. They saw a swastika. All these things are of note, and reporters were right to include them in their stories about the rally. That’s what The Denver Post did in its article…
I mean, if you see a photo of a prominent person hugging someone with a swastika in his hands, you have to wonder what’s going on. The Rocky contacted Penry, and he gave a response. The Rocky tried to reach Caldara. And the Rocky tried to reach Malkin as well, to find out the circumstances of the hug. It’s a valid question and a valid story, handled fairly and accurately by the Rocky…
Sure, as Caldara says, you could see ugly things at a rally of progressives, just like you saw at Caldara’s rally of righties. And if a person was holding a swastika and was caught on camera hugging a prominent lefty, reporters would have the right to ask questions about it.
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I suspect his frustration at being Cladara’s and Wadham’s errand boy went something like this:
Given how frequently Caldara himself has tossed around the “communist” or “socialist” label in reference to Obama, it’s not surprising he’d try to downplay the fact that his rally featured some of the same smear tactics rather than factual debate.
Here are a few examples:
http://colorado.mediamatters.o…
http://colorado.mediamatters.o…
http://colorado.mediamatters.o…
Oh, and using the Nazi or Hitler allusion is a pretty regular habit of the right-wing media ilk in Colorado, as well; no wonder they don’t want to draw attention to their embarrassing behavior:
http://colorado.mediamatters.o…
It wasn’t a ploy. A ploy is a setup spun in a manner that is not truthful to the facts. This was simply & fairly reporting something that occured.
Now you could complain about the emphasis it received. But based on the interest people have shown in the story, I’d say that emphasis was fair.
So really all you can complain about is that they did not fall for your ploy and spin the story as you wanted.
He makes a good living spewing radicals ideas, though.
Caldara actually pointed out other radicals who attended his rally as proof of the media’s bias? Is this joker serious?
Caldara: ‘Uh, if you think swastika guy was bad, we had another guy there claiming Obama is going to haul Americans off to Gulags with his new secret black army!’
Penry and Mitchell actually encouraged that type of behavior by palling around with radicals like Caldara and his sick friends.
That’s apparently OK with Caldara, who was Peter Boyles’ guest when Boyles repeatedly called the Denver congresswoman “V*gina Dejet” or “V*gina DeGette” on his Wednesday morning broadcast.
http://colorado.mediamatters.o…
Not a peep from Caldara during the program suggesting that might such remarks might be inappropriate. But given his own track record of misogynist on-air remarks, not surprising.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=114018&title=a-relatively-closer-look-hitler