Media Matters for America

Imus producer on man who admitted killing Ramsey: "He looks like Ned Lamont, actually. Is that who you want representing you, Connecticut?"

August 17, 2006 12:34 pm ET

On the August 17 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, executive producer Bernard McGuirk said that John Mark Karr, the man who reportedly admitted to killing 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey in 1996, "looks like Ned Lamont, actually." McGuirk then asked: "Is that who you want representing you, Connecticut?"

McGuirk's remarks were just the latest attack against Lamont, the Democratic nominee for a Connecticut Senate seat. As the weblog Think Progress noted, on the August 16 edition of Fox News Live, former Weekly Standard deputy publisher David Bass said that a woman who caused a plane to be diverted after suffering a panic attack was "probably not a terrorist; could just be a Ned Lamont supporter." As Media Matters for America has noted, since his victory in the primary on August 8, Lamont has been cast by members of the media as a part of the "Taliban wing" of the Democratic party, "anti-American," "defeatist" and the latest example of how Democrats have become "apologists for terrorists."

From the August 17 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

McGUIRK: He was a nutjob obsessed with child slayings. He was supposedly researching a book on it, and he's clearly a pencil-necked pervert himself.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: But, again, until they have some DNA or some hard evidence, he could be just jerking everybody's chain here.

IMUS: Now, when we -- well, this footage that I'm looking at on MSNBC, was that from yesterday?

McGUIRK: He looks like Ned Lamont, actually. Is that who you want representing you, Connecticut?

From the August 16 edition of Fox News Live:

BASS: Unfortunately, it is the new normal. I mean, there's no more shouting, you know, fire in a theater. This is serious stuff. You know, you say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, information is conveyed in a wrong manner, you can have a plane being shot down, so it's -- People are on edge. You can't really -- she's probably not Al Qaeda affiliated, probably not a terrorist; could just be a Ned Lamont supporter, we don't know. But it's --

BOB SELLERS (host): Had to go there, didn't you?

BASS: I did.

A tip from reader B.D. contributed to this item. Thanks, and keep them coming!

&mdash R.D.

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