Christopher Ruddy Wants You To Think He's Not Really That Bad Of A Bad Guy

Well, I was there last night.

So was Potter of the P-G:

Christopher Ruddy, the influential online conservative publisher who sometimes serves as an oracle for the whims of Donald Trump, warned Wednesday that his friend faces difficult days ahead.

“The Republicans had a catastrophic wake-up call with the Virginia election,” in which Republicans were routed this week, the publisher of online site Newsmax.com told an audience at Oakland’s Pittsburgh Playhouse. And if current trends continue, “The Republicans will probably lose control of the Senate, and maybe even the House.”

As was Lingala of the Pitt News:

Less than a few minutes into Christopher Ruddy’s presentation at the Pittsburgh Playhouse Wednesday night, about 30 Point Park University students stood up silently with their fists in the air, showing off shirts emblazoned with colorful messages such as “People not Profit” and “Love not Hate.”

Ivan Bracy was among the students at the event silently protesting Ruddy’s visit. Ruddy — a long time friend of President Donald Trump and founder and CEO of conservative media outlet Newsmax Media —- was in Pittsburgh to give a presentation and hold a Q&A session concerning the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election.

I think I saw this happen - but I'm not sure as the lights were so low I could barely see my notes. My guess is that with all the floodlights flooding all that light onto the stage, Ruddy himself has no idea it even happened at all (unless someone told him backstage or he reads Pitt News or this blog).

I was struck by how matter of factly he deflected his own participation in the history of fake news while saying, "A free and diverse press fights against fake news." His defense of his "Vince Foster was murdered!" reporting was simply this: "I never said he was murdered" and that he was only "asking questions."

I'm sorry but that's not good enough.  It was disappointing that the story was left with that.

Let's dig a little into the implications of Ruddy's defense of his own Fake News.  His book was published in 1997 some four years after the autopsy "appeared to confirm"  Foster's suicide:

Investigators said today that the autopsy of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel, appeared to confirm that his death two weeks ago was a suicide.

Mr. Foster was found dead July 20 in a nearby Virginia park with a gunshot wound to the head. Officials said today that the autopsy found gunpowder burns on Mr. Foster's hand, strong evidence that he had fired the weapon that killed him. The bullet that went through Mr. Foster's head has not been recovered, officials said.

That was August, 1993.

In between there were numerous investigations (including Ken Starr's) that all said one thing: Foster killed himself.

I have a question for that beacon of journalistic integrity, Christopher Ruddy: If all the evidence pointed to suicide and your "questions" were looking to undermine that evidence, what other conclusion other than murder were you hoping your audience would reach back then?  Do you really think your lack of the use of the word "murder" changes anything?  So how can you now hide behind the "only asking questions" defense?  And why didn't you simply say, "Yea I was wrong about all that." when asked?

Kinda cowardly, if you ask me.

Christopher Ruddy - birther of fake news.