Howard Kurtz of Fox News Channel’s Media Buzz spent his Sunday morning segment highlighting the past week's “badly hyped story that involves flat-out lying” to U.S. Supreme Court justices. As the election looms in the background of every news story, outing conservative Justices seems to be a weekly segment in the progressive media. Yet Kurtz and a panelist spoke out against the hypocrisy of these actions, defending SCOTUS.
Following soundbites of Lauren Windsor and the deceptively recorded conversations she had with Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal media’s overwrought reaction, Kurtz questioned: “Clay, with so many shows treating this as a scandal, what did Sam Alito say that was so terrible?”
‘Outkick’ founder, Clay Travis explained how there was no problem to be found with what Alito said and denounced the secret recordings:
Nothing. I hate the idea of going into these – any event and secretly taping anyone saying anything. You guys have probably been on the cocktail party circuit were people you don’t know might come up and say, “Hey, I watched you on this or I listen to that segment,” and you kind of have a nice conversation to be friendly, but you're not exactly, you know, bearing your soul with the person. It sounded like a cocktail party conversation to me.
But also there is no hypocrisy here. It's not like he said, “Oh yeah, I'm on the Supreme Court and my belief is that the Ten Commandments is the only law that exists anywhere in the world.” I mean if anything I thought that the decision that came down right afterwards 9 - 0 on the Morning-after Pill that didn't grant standing was pretty straight forward answer that we don’t live in a Christian theocracy and that everything is still subject to the rule of law.
Travis argued that we should be spending more time talking about the safety of the justices instead:
I think that the Supreme Court Justices in general have done a great job. I wish we did a better job of protecting them. I wish we’d talk more about the fact that somebody tried to show up at Kavanaugh's house and kill him. The fact that there's still protesters showing up in contravention of federal law and state law outside of their homes chanting out all hours in public residential areas to me this is just all part and parcel of not respecting the Supreme Court justices.
The purported ethics which the mainstream media prided itself on seems to have faltered, a fact perfectly exemplified in just how quickly Lauren Windsor was scooped up by hosts, gunning to condemn the high Court. Travis expounds upon this hypocrisy of such actions by the media, stating:
The New York Times, CNN, all these sources that ran to fall over themselves, would never do this kind of reporting themselves, so it feels like a hide the ball trick to allow her to do it and react to it when the ethics of your own organization would not allow you to do it.
Kurtz recalled how “after ABC lost the lawsuit to Food Lion with an undercover producer it really is considered unethical.”
A sad example of today’s ‘professional’ journalism, these attacks on the Supreme Court, are nothing more than overblown attempts to delegitimize the court with illegitimate claims.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
Fox’s Media Buzz
6/16/2024
11:17:11 AM ESTRun Time: 5 minutes 37 seconds
HOWARD KURTZ: This is a badly hyped story that involves flat-out lying. At the annual Supreme Court charity gala a woman named Lauren Windsor drew Justice Alito into conversation, and this became the “secret tapes.”
(...)
[HEADING NEWS: Lying Liberal Targets Sam Alito: Most Media Don’t Question Deception]
KURTZ: Clay, with so many shows treating this as a scandal, what did Sam Alito say that was so terrible?
CLAY TRAVIS: Nothing. I hate the idea of going into these – any event and secretly taping anyone saying anything. You guys have probably been on the cocktail party circuit were people you don’t know might come up and say, “Hey, I watched you on this or I listen to that segment,” and you kind of have a nice conversation to be friendly, but you're not exactly, you know, bearing your soul with the person. It sounded like a cocktail party conversation to me.
But also there is no hypocrisy here. It's not like he said, “Oh yeah, I'm on the Supreme Court and my belief is that the Ten Commandments is the only law that exists anywhere in the world.” I mean if anything I thought that the decision that came down right afterwards 9 - 0 on the Morning-after Pill that didn't grant standing was pretty straight forward answer that we don’t live in a Christian theocracy and that everything is still subject to the rule of law.
I think that the Supreme Court Justices in general have done a great job. I wish we did a better job of protecting them. I wish we’d talk more about the fact that somebody tried to show up at Kavanaugh's house and kill him. The fact that there's still protesters showing up in contravention of federal law and state law outside of their homes chanting out all hours in public residential areas –
KURTZ: Alright, let me get Lucy in.
TRAVIS: –To me this is just all part and parcel of not respecting the Supreme Court justices.
KURTZ: Lucy, a Supreme Court justice can say, “I believe in godliness” especially when he doesn't use the word but agrees with what someone else says?
LUCY CALDWELL: Yeah, I mean sure. And I mean of course there are – we know that these people have privately held beliefs but we’re missing two items here in this story, one is the contrast between what Alito said and what Robert said. Lauran Windsor also engaged Roberts a lot –
KURTZ: Yes!
CALDWELL: Roberts gave very good answers, and Alito --
KURTZ: Yes, he said exactly what you wanted him to say. That, uh, I just – we should just decide cases, other things are for elected officials.
CALDWELL: That’s right, he said something like it’s a modest job. He said you know this is not a tumultuous time as you think, so I do think that the contrast between Alito and Roberts is interesting.
And the other thing that’s really important here, just so everyone knows a little bit of contrast, Lauran Windsor's playbook came from copying James O'Keefe's Project Veritas playbook, right. And no one – I don't hear – Clay I think you’ve had James on your show right, like James O'Keefe's does the same thing this was a public event it was an event – she used her real name – I understand she represented herself in a way that was different, but I don't hear the same people criticizing her tactics here criticizing this playbook when it is executed the opposite way on the right –
TRAVIS: Well but that –
CADWELL: Against people who are far less public.
TRAVIS: We’ve actually talked about that a lot, like I don't like the idea of finding a pretty girl and getting a guy who is a producer at CNN to go on a date with him and the guys trying to impress the girl and trying to pretend like he directs all CNN programming and then you blow it up. We’ve talked about that actually on my radio show, Clay & Buck, a lot.
I don't like secret tapes. You know I say exactly what I think I think if people tape me secretly, I'm not encouraging it by the way, but I think if you tape me secretly in any conversation I would sound the exact, same on this show and on my radio shows. And I think that's why it's important to be living a consistent life in that respect in terms of your opinions.
But I just – The New York Times, CNN, all these sources that ran to fall over themselves, would never do this kind of reporting themselves, so it feels like a hide the ball trick to allow her to do it and then react to it when the ethics of your own organization wouldn’t allow you to do it.
KURTZ: Well I’ll tell you, you know, somebody who criticized James O'Keefe over the years not for everything but for some of the same deceptive tactics which have been considered, you know, I mean back in, I mean, decades ago 60 Minutes producers will go undercover. But after ABC lost the lawsuit to Food Lion with an undercover producer it really is considered unethical.
So, my question to you, Lucy is this, almost no one in the press is questioning the deceptive tactics of Lauren Windsor, you can say she used her real name, but clearly she was misrepresenting herself. Why is that and why is that not at least subject to debate? Why in the media, is it because the ends justify the means if it's somebody on the left doing it?
CALDWELL: I don't think that's true, that no one is questioning it, you showed a clip of her justifying it on CNN, right. It is not the case that no one's questioning it.
KUTZ: It wasn't exactly critical, they just threw it out there
CALDWELL: I think that we are –
KURTZ: Almost no one is questioning it.
CALDWELL: – Okay I think that we are at a point where there is – we have had such a corrosion of how we cover this stuff that it is, you know – the incentives that exist in this media landscape and I think it's true that mainstream outlets do not use Lauren Windsor's tactics, just as a lot of you know mainstreams don't use James O'Keefe tactics, right? But they are going to cover it. And it is also true that it is okay to hold a Supreme Court justice to a different standard than we would to the standard we would hold Clay to, or a member of Congress. I mean, it is different.
TRAVIS: Thank God!
[All laugh]
KURTZ: I think Clay is as least as important.
CALDWELL: It's a different job that's what I mean by a different standard. It's a different job to be a Supreme Court justice, and I think that's apparent to people.
KURTZ: Yeah, it's got a lifetime tenure.
TRAVIS: I would say, Howard, by the way this all started when the decision, the Dobbs decision got leaked early I think, that really put the Supreme Court under the microscope in a way that it did not been before and by the way we still don't know who did that. Amazing.
