It only appeared on the screen for a few moments, but it was still an eyebrow-raiser.
On the April 20 edition of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, the eponymous host derisively discussed a story about President Obama skipping intelligence briefings that had "made its way into the whole universe of conservative media outlets." As Maddow spoke, a graphic appeared showing headlines on the matter from Breitbart, Hot Air, Newsmax and ... RT.
Yes, Russia Today, the Kremlin-funded propaganda network that, according to BuzzFeed, regularly injects anti-American language into scripts and incessantly promotes a Russian agenda to make the U.S. look like a "crumbling, corrupt empire."
Whatever the reason for its inclusion, Maddow's idea that Russia's propaganda channel could be included among the ranks of conservative websites is crazy. Maddow should know criticism of President Obama comes from the Left too.
As a matter of fact, reviews of both RT and MSNBC, an unabashedly progressive network, revealed more similarities between the two than she might care to admit.
Shared guests, to name a few, include liberal magazine Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Obama economic adviser Jared Bernstein, left-wing reporter Glenn Greenwald, left-wing reporter Jeremy Scahill and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Ron Paul (who has also appeared on Fox). Topics ranging from Tea Party racism to evil Republican voter ID laws to George W. Bush's war criminal status to whatever the Washington Free Beacon is have also appeared on both MSNBC and RT.
That being said, MSNBC is not beholden to Russian interests. Also, 9/11 truther and RT anchor Abby Martin often rails on MSNBC and the rest of the "corporate media," albeit from the far Left of the spectrum.
But calling RT conservative? A mistake at best, obvious slander against right-leaning media at worst.