Correction: “American media” has been changed to “media” in general on account of the Financial Times being a British outlet.”
The media are out with a new hit piece on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The hit piece comes amid a flurry of puff pieces about Democrats running for office, particularly Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman.
Published by the Financial Times, the latest hit piece caught the attention of DeSantis’ former press secretary turned campaign worker, Christina Pushaw, over one of the anecdotes contained within.
The particular anecdote that piqued her attention concerned the governor’s alleged behavior growing up.
“In his recent pandemic memoir, What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year, the author and critic Charles Finch recalled two things about his former classmate, known then as ‘D’: he did an uncanny impression of baseball star Jose Canseco and, according to a friend, would tell dates he liked Thai food, but pronounced it ‘thigh,'” the anecdote reads.
“If they corrected him, Finch wrote, he would find an excuse to leave. ‘He didn’t want a girlfriend who corrected him,'” it continues.
Pushaw responded to anecdote by mocking the media for preferring Andrew Gillum, the Democrat nominee whom DeSantis bested in 2018 during his first run for office.
“Aww… I know you journalists would’ve preferred the governor of Florida to be the guy who was corrupt enough to get indicted by Biden’s DOJ as a Democrat. After passing out in a hotel room surrounded by male escorts & meth pipes. So sorry this is happening to you,” she tweeted Saturday evening.
Aww… I know you journalists would’ve preferred the governor of Florida to be the guy who was corrupt enough to get indicted by Biden’s DOJ as a Democrat. After passing out in a hotel room surrounded by male escorts & meth pipes. So sorry this is happening to you. pic.twitter.com/aCUnsVYHll
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) October 23, 2022
Gillum was indicted this past summer over wire fraud, related conspiracy charges, and making false statements.
“The Indictment alleges that between 2016 and 2019, defendants Gillum and [Sharon Janet Lettman-Hicks] conspired to commit wire fraud, by unlawfully soliciting and obtaining funds from various entities and individuals through false and fraudulent promises and representations that the funds would be used for a legitimate purpose,” a statement from the Justice Department reads.
“The Indictment further alleges the defendants used third parties to divert a portion of those funds to a company owned by Lettman-Hicks, who then fraudulently provided the funds, disguised as payroll payments, to Gillum for his personal use. Both defendants are charged with 19 counts of wire fraud. Gillum is also charged with making false statements to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the statement continues.
Federal grand jury returns a 21-count indictment against Andrew Gillum for Conspiracy, Wire Fraud, And Making False Statements https://t.co/CxjzrTZyMh pic.twitter.com/v1BtjybZnJ
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 22, 2022
Prior to the 2018 election, the media ran endless puff pieces about Gillum and hit pieces about DeSantis.
Below are just a few sample headlines pertaining to Gillum:
- Vox: “Who is Andrew Gillum? Meet Florida’s history-making Democratic nominee for governor”
- The Washington Post: “‘The Obama excitement’: Can Andrew Gillum capture it in Florida?”
- Tallahassee Democrat: “Andrew Gillum wields star power; Ron DeSantis dismisses it”
- Sun-Sentinel: “Help Florida. Elect Andrew Gillum as governor”
- ABC News: “Andrew Gillum could be poised to make history in gubernatorial bid”
With a new election approaching, the media are repeating old habits by running hit pieces on DeSantis and puff pieces on his latest opponents.
Dovetailing back to the Financial Times’ piece, Pushaw wasn’t the only one who bristled at the Thai food story.
Look:
This is actually really smart. I used to sometimes show up late on purpose and stuff to see how women would handle it and also start small arguments to see if they let it go or bring it up a bunch more times. All good tips.
— Tim Swain (@_TimSwain_) October 22, 2022
“Yikes: Man discovers unique way of weeding out insufferable women. We delve more into how this behavior is just like Adolf Hitler’s at eleven.”
— Aldous Huxley’s Ghost™ (@AF632) October 22, 2022
“According to a friend…” Now there’s some excellent triangulated reporting, second only to “I heard it in the girl’s bathroom.”
— Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) October 23, 2022
Listen, I’m perfectly open to the idea that Ron DeSantis is flawed. But this is a portrait told entirely from the outside – a mixture of hearsay, observation, conjecture. This can be done well (“Frank Sinatra Has A Cold”) but here, it just feels like the jeer of a chorus. There’s
— Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) October 23, 2022
no insight, no friction, no moment of humanity to contrast with monstrous ambition. I’d love to know more about Ron DeSantis before we consider voting him into the White House (should such a thing occur). But nothing here feels like real history or deep reporting. It’s like every
— Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) October 23, 2022
other RDS hit piece, only better written, with more thoughtful pauses and a few nods to his successes.
Give me a day with the man and his team and I can do better. And I’m not that good – just genuinely curious and without bias.
— Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) October 23, 2022
Notice what the latter Twitter user wrote about how the piece did, in fairness, highlight some of DeSantis’ “successes.”
This is true. It’s not a blatant hit piece. In fact, some would argue that it’s a fair piece that contains both pros and cons about DeSantis.
But there’s just one problem.
“He hired a new communications director, Christina Pushaw, who is renowned for bringing a hatchet to social media fights. In the furor over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, Pushaw tweeted that opposition to the bill was tantamount to complicity in paedophilia. Alex Patton called her ‘the 4chan translator’, referring to the internet chatboard that became a haven for the paranoid far right,” another anecdote reads.
Except there’s no such thing as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. There’s the Parental Rights in Education bill that has been smeared by Democrats as the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill. And well, the fact that the Times chose to parrot Democrats’ talking points about the bill to a T seems to speak volumes …
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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