Yahoo certainly seems to have a strange definition of “news.” The website on Thursday placed in its news section an op-ed from the hard-left website Mic. Writer Tom McKay used the most hyperbolic language possible for an article entitled, “The Haunting of Ted Cruz: Sinister Extremists Are His Dark Legacy From 2016.” He slimed, “2016 came to bury Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, not to praise him. But the evils men do outlive them.”
The piece then goes on to dig into the “extremists” who supported Cruz during his presidential run. Cruz dropped out on May 3, 2016. This piece appeared on May 26, three and a half weeks later. When Bernie Sanders eventually drops out, will Yahoo still be hyping op-eds bashing him a month later?
On one of his targets, McKay wrote:
Steve Deace, a nationally syndicated radio host originally based out of Iowa, boasts an audience of tens of thousands of listeners. They tune in to hear the self-declared alpha male rant about the "manginas" in charge of today's GOP, suggest that a "whole generation of women [is] on the lookout for some alpha males" and cast Republican leadership's mission as "pass Obama's agenda, lie to conservatives, defraud voters and total capitulation."
The host's biggest splash in national headlines this year was a widely mocked suggestion that former Hewlett-Packard CEO (and, ironically, future Cruz vice presidential selection) Carly Fiorina had gone "full vagina" for discussing her experiences as a female businesswoman during the race.
Yet Cruz, arbiter of the politically disastrous 2013 government shutdown, has found a natural ally in Deace, a growing voice in the all-or-nothing attitude defining modern GOP politics.
Deace's influence in Iowa helped Cruz obtain a crucial victory in the state — which plays a crucial role in shaping media perceptions of viability due to its early primary dates — by helping mobilize a small but vocal vanguard of far-right activists in conjunction with other organizers like U.S. Rep. Steve King and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. According to the Des Moines Register, Deace was a key leader of a team of 12,000 volunteers who made 25,000 calls and 2,000 home visits daily in the days leading to the vote. He has simultaneously used his prominence to land key appearances on national media, where he tones down the rhetoric to make him and Cruz seem more reasonable.
Apparently, Cruz is responsible for every comment by one of his supporters. Good thing Democrats such as Hillary Clinton have any extreme fans. But the larger point is why is this left-wing harangue under news? Given that Yahoo employs Katie Couric, an anti-gun journalist in trouble for her documentary that doctored footage, maybe the site doesn’t have a clear idea of what how “news” is defined.
