In order to appeal to an extremist MSNBC audience, Politico’s Glenn Thrush shamelessly pumped up the partisanship by giving Governor Chris Christie’s bridge lane closing controversy a “funny” name: “bridge-ghazi.”
During a discussion of Christie’s troubles on the January 13 Alex Wagner show, Thrush jumped in mirthfully using the term “bridge-ghazi,” much to Wagner’s amusement.
It should be remembered that the terrorist attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, Libya resulted in the deaths of four Americans, one of whom was Chris Stevens, our ambassador to Libya. To add “ghazi” to the far more trivial bridge controversy makes a mockery of their deaths.
It is possible that Thrush picked up this term belittling the deaths of four Americans during attacks by terrorists in Benghazis from entertainment site Buzzfeed as the term was promoted as hilarious recently by Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski.
But Politico’s Thrush isn’t the only member of the Washington-based news site to push the loathsome “bridge-ghazi” term. Politico’s Jose Delreal thought is was just a great new way to name scandals.
Worse, the social media team at Politico thought using the hashtag #bridgeghazi was a good idea, too.
With Thrush’s use of the term, Noah Rothman noted its tastelessness. “If the tastelessness of this jab is still too ambiguous for you, your moral compass could use recalibration,” Rothman said.
Of course, MSNBC has been wall to wall with one show after another filled with dubious news about the bridge lane closure controversy since the middle of last week pushing the story to the exclusion of everything else going on in the world.