Media Matters Highlights Tancredo’s Anti-Obama Screed, Ignores McCain Bashing

File this in under “selective reporting.” Media Matters breathlessly reported how Rep. Tom Tancredo opened the Tea Party Convention in Nashville yesterday with remarkably harsh words for both the American electorate and President Obama. What they neglected to report was that he also shared similarly harsh words for GOP nominee John McCain.

In light of the criticism Media Matters frequently directs towards Fox News for it’s “unbalanced coverage”, it’s particularly interesting that they only highlight this part of Tancredo’s rant, perhaps because his solely railing against Obama better fits the binary narrative some love to promote.

While Tancredo’s inflammatory words were likely designed to get this sort of attention, at least his speech was somewhat bipartisan in its vitriol. Making “matters” worse – the story was picked up by Huffington Post, who reported only part of the comments:

Former Congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo told an audience on Thursday at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville that “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.”

“His name,” Tancredo said, “is Barack Hussein Obama.”

Tancredo delivered the opening keynote speech at the convention where several hundred Tea Party conservatives have gathered.

“So the race for America is on right now. The president and his left-wing allies in Congress are going to look at every opportunity to destroy the Constitution before we have a chance to save it,” Tancredo told the delegates. “So put your running shoes on. Because I’ll tell you, I’ve heard we need a revolution. My friends, we already had it. We lost. I mean, what happened to us in that last election was a revolution.”

Just after these comments, Tancredo then launched into a rant against McCain and the GOP establishment:

If McCain had been elected, Neo-Cons would be writing flattering editorials in a Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal. Congressman Gutierrez & President McCain would have been posing in a Rose Garden with big smiles as ay received accolades from La Raza for having finally passed an amnesty. President Calderone and President McCain would be toasting the elimination of those pesky things called borders, and major steps would have been taken toward the creation of a North American union.

If McCain had been elected, Sarah Palin would not be free to tell it like it is. The Republican congress would never be voting in 100% opposition to left-leaning legislation as they are today. There would be no Republican in Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts.

If McCain had been elected, America would be moving down the same collectivist path, and there would have been no Tea Party, no 9/12ers, no rally for America on the Washington Mall and we would not be here.

To truly appreciate the effect of the selective edits, one need first watch the Media Matters clip below:

Now view the clip of Tancredo speaking as it aired on CNN (note – the jump cut in the middle was done by CNN editors.)