CNN.com covered Sunday’s “Million Vet March” in Washington D.C. against the Obama administration’s closure of military memorials by castigating the marchers as Tea Party kooks and fringe crazies. “At tea party-like rally, Obama told to ‘put the Quran down,'” the headline read. CNN derided the size of the crowd:
The rally, billed as the “Million Vet March on the Memorials,” drew far fewer than a million people and evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience. One speaker went as far as saying the president was a Muslim and separately urged the crowd of hundreds to initiate a peaceful uprising.
CNN focused on one speaker, Larry Klayman, whom it quoted as stating, “I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.”
CNN then tried to lump in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in with Klayman: “High-profile speakers with close ties to the tea party appeared at the event, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.”
CNN then featured the fringiest elements of the protest it could find:
Anti-Obama sentiments echoed throughout the crowd Sunday, with one protester yelling out “punk” to describe the president and one speaker saying Obama is not the president of “the” people but “his” people. Multiple signs read “Impeach Obama.” At least one vulgar sign could be seen, which was directed more toward Republicans. It read “You can’t be a conservative and a p**sy too.”
CNN never covered Occupy Wall Street or the “Million Muslim March” on September 11 in such fashion.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).