Leftie Media Beclowned Themselves Over Gorsuch High School Yearbook Entry
When confirmation bias outweighs the desire for accuracy
No one can take a joke these days, especially not media outlets driven by confirmation bias.
The Daily Mail was the first outlet to report Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch started a club in high school called “Fascism Forever”.
Touted as an “exclusive”, The Daily Mail must’ve obtained a copy of a yearbook. Rather than focus on the numerous conservative tendencies of the young Gorsuch, also included in the yearbook, the Daily Mail ran with the clearly satirical “Fascism Forever Club.”
The post was updated after publication, but it’s unclear what was updated.
The Daily Mail post birthed numerous other posts, all linking back to the original. Few got the joke. Most didn’t.
When humor is consumed by confirmation bias, we’re subjected to these headlines:
Even Hollywood gossip blogs spread the fake news:
“President Pee-Pee”?
Forward went so far as to describe the evils of fascism, even name dropping the U.S. Holocaust Museum:
But Gorsuch started the Fascism Forever Club, right?
It was “a total joke” says a history teacher and advisor from Gorsuch’s junior and senior years:
He wrote that he founded and led the “Fascism Forever Club,” though those with knowledge of the school back in the 1980s say there was no such club. The mention of it in the yearbook was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to poke fun at liberal peers who teased him about his fierce conservatism.
It was “a total joke,” said Steve Ochs, a history teacher at Georgetown Prep who was the student government advisor during Mr. Gorsuch’s junior and senior years at the Bethesda, Md., school.
“There was no club at a Jesuit school about young fascists,” he told America. “The students would create fictitious clubs; they would have fictitious activities. They were all inside jokes on their senior pages.”
Google Search Damage is Done
Type “Gorsuch” into a Google search bar and the search behemoth offers the following suggested searches:
Good job, media mob.
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Well, if his prep school had a young fascists’ club, who can prove he would not have joined it? Better go with Obama’s nominee. He’s not a fascist.
My year book could have truthfully reported that I would go into the dark basement of my public (but pretty ‘preppy’ high-school), don leather clothing, strap myself in tortured ways, assume weird positions, and discharge firearms for hours at a time.
This wasn’t even close to that truthful…
I wasn’t into the leather or the strapping, but we did have a firing range in the basement of my junior high school building.
We had leather shooting jackets, slings, and cuffs. Formal target shooting put me (at least) in considerable discomfort. NOTHING hurt like shooting from the kneeling position. It still does.
My senior high school page could get me arrested today.
I had a cartoon sketch a fellow student did of me blowing up a building on campus and it was my “Senior ramPage.” It was meant as a joke and it was filled with all sorts of fun nods to my time as a student.
Henry, you forgot your sarcasm markers.
I AM a sarcasm marker.
Oddly enough, from my reading on Gorsuch and his past holdings and writings, he maaaaaaay be to Scalia’s MORE originalist side.
As George Will points out, Gorsuch is more inclined toward natural rights as stated in the Declaration than was even Scalia, who considered the Declaration “aspirational”.
All to the good, unless you’re a Collectivist…
Proof that the progressive wolf cries of fascism have been going on for a long time.
Well, it CAN be taken for deep, dark crap.
OR it CAN be seen as silly sophomoric stuff by the editors of the yearbook.
Remember, Anne Gorsuch was head of the EPA at one time under Reagan, and was the target of Collectivists in her day.
My comment was intended as tongue-in-cheek. However, the “joke” as it may be was still an association made by the editor and the point stands. It would have been a joke a decade or 2 ago that you can only be racist if you are white…fast forward to today.
What? Not a member of the Choom Gang??? Do Madrassa’s have year books?
At the time, I didn’t believe the media could be any more stupid or dishonest than they were during the Presidential campaign.
Boy, was I wrong.
With seven years and fifty weeks to go for them to get worse…
Pro-Choice is forever. It’s not satire. Well, maybe it’s a parody of human rights and scientific integrity.
My high school yearbook says that my secret ambition was to build the Soviet Union’s first chewing gum factory. That has to disqualify me from something.
Owning the Cubs.
Well, obviously journalists interviewed the faculty sponsor of the club at Georgetown Prep and other members and asked for comment from Gorsuch before publishing. That’s journalism 101 and they always check their facts.
And its a public interest story after all, since we can’t have our president elevate a current federal appeals court judge with a history of championing fascism to the Supreme Court when other qualified candidates are available to defend the constitution.
OK, yeah, that’s more than enough sarcasm for one day.
Well Ted Cruz wanted to star in a teen tit movie in high school. Although I’m pretty sure most guys at that age want to as well.
My favorite head line is the “… and the internet wants answers” one. If your readers really wanted answers they would be easy for a legit news source to find. An hour of phone calls and they have the real “scoop”, to include in their article. The problem is that the internet doesn’t actually want answers, it’s just fake news and memes to get the message out, if it turns out wrong they don’t care, they’ll just label it alternative facts and walk away.