No one likes a sore winner, but we’re not here to be liked. Here’s how the biggest denial outlets responded to Scott Pruitt’s long-awaited departure last week.
The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial blaming the “permanent progressive state” for running Pruitt out, while also paradoxically noting that “Mr. Pruitt gave his enemies so much ammunition.” Apparently, the Journal thinks it was wrong for reporters to “have examined every furl of Mr. Pruitt’s forehead.” Normally, it would be weird for a free and independent media to criticize reporting on government officials, but that’s only if one were to consider the Journal’s editorial board to have standards and ethics and objectives outside that of supporting the GOP. As we’ve repeatedly shown, that’s a silly assumption.
As for supposedly non-opinion coverage, let’s look at the Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch, one the most successful Koch folk pretending to be a journalist. Bastasch wrote two separate pieces on Pruitt last week: a sympathetic quick take with Pruitt’s grossly obsequious resignation letter in full, and piece blaming the “endless stream of negative press” for Pruitt’s downfall. With his unnamed source giving him one last piece of Pruitt PR dressed up as a “scoop,” Bastasch did his stenographer job and blamed Thursday’s “scathing New York Times story” for being “the murder weapon” responsible for Pruitt’s resignation.
Bastasch subsequently accidentally wrote a helpful piece on Friday documenting how Pruitt’s replacement Andrew Wheeler is the latest former Inhofe staffer at the EPA, listing out four other high-ranking EPA appointees who served time with Senator Snowball. Now that Pruitt’s out, real investigative reporters should probably start poking around to see what other nonsense Inhofe’s staffers are up to. We rarely tell folks to check out Daily Caller pieces, but anyone looking for scoops might want to follow up with Bastasch’s list!
Meanwhile, the Caller’s not-real investigative “reporter” Jason Hopkins wrote a lovely roundup on Friday of the “field day” environmentalists and people who don’t like to breathe deadly pollution had reacting to Pruitt’s ouster. Hopkins puts his investigative skills to use in this piece by...compiling some tweets from popular verified users. Truly impressive investigative work.
Rounding out the Caller’s coverage is Chris White, who wrote his own story for a change, and provided a “a list of five of Pruitt’s most significant accomplishments.” Unsurprisingly, not a single of these “wins” has actually been accomplished yet, since policy moves are still failing their way through the courts and the US can’t pull out of Paris for another couple years.
Not to be outdone by the Caller’s five pieces, Breitbart ran six stories (and two old stories linked on the home page). First up, of course, was the breaking story and a follow-up on Trump’s “no final straw” comments, followed by a collection of praise for Pruitt from “energy experts.” The “experts” quoted in praise range from one Koch cronies to a second Koch crony, really illustrating the incredibly breadth, variety and quantity of energy experts who approved of Pruitt. Then Breitbart made a whole post out of a clip of Bernie Sanders on CNN, as well as a story about how “the media is already attacking” Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt’s replacement.
Interestingly, coal-funded climate science harasser Chris Horner is quoted in that last piece, and described as having “known Wheeler for years.” Similarly, Horner’s fellow tobacco-lobbyist-turned-fossil-fuel-booster Steve Milloy bragged on Twitter that Wheeler is “a past colleague”--we’re assuming this is a reference to Milloy’s time at Murray Energy while Wheeler lobbied for the coal giant.
In addition to his coal lobbying, and his time spent enacting the agenda of Senator Snowball, Wheeler was also a chairman, and now chair emeritus, of the National Energy Resources Officers. NERO, with a name begging for the ol’ “fiddling while Rome burns” bit, is an oil and energy industry networking group with a footnote on its website that it’s “c/o Carole Goess & Associates,” a Republican fundraising organization.
As former EPA Admin Christine Todd Whitman and lots of other people wrote, it’s clear that even with Pruitt out, Wheeler’s polluted resume means there should be plenty more to uncover.
First though, give yourself a moment to enjoy Breitbart's sixth Pruitt story, the one that led the homepage on Friday morning: a compilation of Hollywood elites’ reaction to Pruitt’s firing. Granted, you have to pollute your browser history with Breitbart, but it’s worth it. Treat yourself.
Then get to work. We know Wheeler is.
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