Late Thursday afternoon, Fournier spoke to Breitbart News. Read the full piece here.
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Despite numerous good faith efforts, The National Journal’s Ron Fournier ignored repeated requests from Breitbart News asking him to condemn and/or comment on a fellow journalist openly mocking the Christian faith of Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker.
Taegan Goddard, publisher and writer of the Political Wire, blasted Walker Tuesday for engaging in the long-held Christian tradition of engaging in prayer and discernment. “I’m still trying to decipher if this is God’s calling,” Walker told the Wall Street Journal in response to a question about finalizing a presidential run.
Fournier’s media colleague Goddard responded with the kind of bigoted mockery that would see him lose the good opinion of the DC media were Walker anything but a conservative Christian:
Walker Has Not Communicated with God
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) frequently says he’s waiting for “God’s calling” to run for president, so he was recently asked under public records laws to provide call “a copy/transcript of all communications with God, the Lord, Christ, Jesus or any other form of deity.”
Walker’s office responded that no such records exist.
Late last week, after former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani expressed his private opinion about President Obama’s love of country in a private setting, Fournier was one of the first in the media to lead the charge in demanding everyone in the GOP “have the decency to denounce this[.]”
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Although Fournier has publicly attacked the patriotism of ObamaCare opponents, he found Giuliani’s private expression of this persona opinion (Politico published Giuliani’s commentse, despite the fact they were off-the-record) so distasteful he demanded the whole of the GOP denounce them.
Apparently, Fournier doesn’t believe that either he or his profession should be held to this same standard. Or he doesn’t believe Goddard’s “othering” campaign against Walker is something that should be denounced.
The latter is the most likely. In a Wednesday column defending the media’s “gotcha” questions, Fournier argued correctly that no question should be off-limits to a politician but then went on to betray his McCarthyist streak against the Wisconsin Governor by giving Walker the “correct” answer to a question regarding Obama’s patriotism. Walker did answer the question about Obama’s patriotism. He said he didn’t know.
To make Walker pay a political price for not answering the question “correctly,” Fournier is intentionally misleading his readers; pretending Walker ducked a question he in fact answered.
In this column, as expected, Fournier chose to ignore the glaring media double standard that primarily singles out Republicans for “gotcha” questions. Although his brand is one of a bold, non-partisan truth teller, whether it is gotcha questions or the mockery of another’s religion, there is no “bold” or “truth” in Fournier if it will in any way rock his own boat.
Breitbart News attempted to contact Fournier via email, Twitter, and a detailed voice mail message left at the offices of The National Journal. We will update this report should he choose to respond.
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