This is unbelievable. In last night's "NBC Nightly News," Pete Williams had a segment on the Holocaust Museum shooter, James von Brunn, and they presented a guy by the name of John de Nugent to attest to his pre-shooting mental state. Which John de Nugent, you ask? This one - the one who thinks that white men and women should "take back their honor"; the one who says that "When Jews attack and lie, I must be doing my job very well"; the one who thought he should be president and wrote this on his "John de Nugent for President" page: "You will notice my outreach to blacks, appealing to their self-interest. We don't need a race war with blacks triggered by the Jews who are stage-managing Obama and may yet murder him to start a race war." Oh. That John de Nugent.
Before I go to the set-up of de Nugent's highly important contributions to the #1 nightly news show in America, watched by millions, here's what he thinks of Ben Bernanke: "Ben Bernanke, the Jew who controls all U.S. Money in a nation that is 98% non-Jewish." (He's got similar opinions about Jews Michael Mukasey and Michael Chertoff.)
Here's what he thinks of the whole lot of 'em: "Do you know your real masters? These leaders of the J-Team, the Jewish power-brokers, run the USA regime of fear -- and tell their puppets -- Bush, the slick-jiving Obamanation and Cain -- what to say and what never to discuss in public about their power and crimes."
Hmm. Do YOU think he's a credible source?
NBC did - and so, apparently, did ABC, CBS, WaPo, Bloomberg, AP and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Here's how he was set-up on NBC Nightly News:
Pete Williams, after introducing von Brunn's writings, which included comments like "The Holocaust was a lie. Obama was created by Jews" and "Obama does what his Jew-owners tell him to," then said "A white separatist who talked with him just two weeks ago said Brunn never mentioned President Obama and was worried about money." Visual: Video of de Nugent speaking at a podium; front page of de Nugent's website. Then cut to de Nugent himself, suit and tie before a cityscape backdrop - just like any expert! - with "White Separatist" chyroned beneath him, as official-looking as if he were Chuck Todd.
DEEP BREATH.
Why would they give this guy a platform? Did they not read his website? Did they not understand his mission? I get that de Nugent was someone who could speak to von Brunn's mental state, but what about his mental state? Your "experts" have to be credible. Can we really trust someone who writes about the "J-Team, Jewish power-brokers" as presidential puppeteers to be honest about his buddy who wrote about how "Obama does what his Jew-owners tell him to?" IS THERE MAYBE A CREDIBILITY ISSUE HERE?
There sure is - and if you don't believe me, well then, take it from John de Nugent himself, courtesy of this crowing, trumphant post on his blog:
My media approach on the Von Brunn/guard tragedy
Dear comrades,
I am sure you are aware of the James von Brunn situation. At least I was able to turn some bad PR lemons into lemonade last night and yesterday, and I got to 1) explain how understandable white anger is, and 2) how Obama needs to assuage heightened white fears about gun and speech control or he will, by everything he does, provoke even more incidents.
I was interviewed at length by ABC Good Morning America, ABC Nightly News, the CBS Early Show, Fox News (Sheppard Smith Report), NBC Nightly News, the Washington Post, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Bloomberg, and Associated Press.
Congratulations, MSM! Good job on helping this crazy, vile man turn those bad PR lemons into lemonade!
Deep breath again.
Look - as a journalist, media critic and lawyer (AND JEW, I'M SURE DE NUGENT WOULD POINT OUT!), I understand that the goal is to collect the most useful and relevant information, however repugnant the source. But in every case, you have to evaluate the credibility of that source. Is the information verifiable? Is their self-interest implicated? Would they have any compelling reason to spin, misrepresent or lie - and do you have any way of ascertaining that? In this case, the answers are clear: No, the information is not verifiable - the networks and papers were going only on de Nugent's word. Yes, his self-interest was implicated - his mission seems pretty consistent with that of von Brunn's, based on their assorted writings. Yes, he had a compelling reason to spin, misrepresent or lie - put it this way, if von Brunn and he had been chatting about how terrible the Jews were and how someone really should do something about it, do you think he would have said so? I sure as hell don't.
Hell. Now that's a more appropriate place for this racist, anti-Semitic hatemonger than splashed across NBC Nightly News - or ABC, CBS, AP, WaPo, Bloomberg or any other so-called "credible" news source. Check your facts, people - and your sources.
Related:
VIDEO: Holocaust Museum To Reopen Friday [NBC Nightly News]
Rachel Sklar is the Editor-at-Large of Mediaite.com, a soon-to-launch multi-media website all about media. Get a preview of Mediate on Twitter here, and follow Rachel on Twitter here.