The national media pounced on a delicious story alleging Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz terrified a 3-year-old girl at a New Hampshire speech with wild, over-the-top cries of, “The world is on fire!”

Gawker set the tone.

“‘The world is on fire?!’ Julie Trant shouts about 40 seconds into the clip embedded above. ‘YES! Your world is on fire,’ Cruz says in an arguably ineffective method of consoling a small child. ‘But you know what? Your mommy’s here, and everyone’s here to make sure the world you grow up in is even better!’ Hm,” Gawker blogger Alexander Chan wrote, signaling to fellow liberals they must point and giggle at Cruz.

Mediaite piled on: “During a pre-campaign stop at the Turbocam facility in New Hampshire Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) finally got someone to take his warnings about the Obama administration’s foreign policy seriously: a three-year-old girl.” (They published a more fair-minded follow-up.)

“Ted Cruz scares the hell out of a terrified little girl in New Hampshire,” Raw Story “reported” breathlessly, accusing Cruz of doing damage control.

The New York Daily News glommed off Raw Story: “The little girl was far too young to cast a ballot, but she was old enough to be scared by Sen. Ted Cruz’s fiery rhetoric,” their cutesy lede reads.

“Ted Cruz’s New Campaign Strategy: Scare Tiny Children!” squeals New York Magazine, calling Cruz a “spittle-spewing angry monster.” (Would they use the same phrase to describe Hillary Clinton at her last press conference? Rhetorical.)

“Ted Cruz has taken fear-mongering to the next level,” a concern troll at the Daily Dot snarks. Cruz is guilty of leaving a toddler “permanently scarred.”

All this from a sober Washington Post article from a reporter trailing Cruz as he gave routine pitches to Republican grassroots. So, what actually happened?

At one point, Cruz spoke about the “Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind,” and said the world is on fire. A young girl in the crowd immediately said aloud, “The world is on fire?” Cruz looked at the girl, Julie Trant, 3, who was sitting with her mother, Michelle. “Yes, the world is on fire,” Cruz said. “Your world is on fire.” He then told Julie that her mommy is here and that they are all trying to make the world better for her as the crowd applauded.

Scary stuff.

The story pushes all the leftists buttons: Republicans are insane religious racist rednecks, they are cartoonish buffoons, they’re a danger to the country and everyone around them. Please, dear God, don’t let America wind up like the crying little girl.

Except little Julie Trant didn’t cry, or act scared, or cringe in terror. Michelle Trant, Julie’s mother, said Julie was delighted and called the senator “Uncle Cruz” afterwards.

“She looked at him as a hero,” Trant told WRKO, a radio station. “She was like, ‘Oh, this is a great man.’ He’s a firefighter in her mind. She was quite happy and wanted a cookie.”

The media, prejudiced as they are against Republicans, cast Cruz as a maniac while publishing videos that directly contradict their reports. No matter how good-humored a GOP candidate acts on tape, he may still get smeared as a maniac in print. The video shows the audience and Cruz having a good-natured laugh at Julie’s question. Ever been around a three-year-old? They have a lot to say and don’t wait patiently for their turn to address a senator.

When the leftist noise-making machine lets a story like this take off, 1) it’s usually a total lie and 2) the reporting is in-group liberal signaling rather than breaking news. You can hear the gchat conversations beeping faster than you can say, “Todd Akin.” The only thing liberal bloggers managed to accomplish was giving a toddler a slew of wild Google results 15 years before she’s eligible to vote in a presidential election.

Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart.com.