The media really sucks, but you already know that, right? But today, they may be out-doing themselves.

Take a look at this headline from ABC News:

Giuliani Says Trump Better For US ‘Than a Woman’

And the caption to the video that accompanies the story:

Rudy Giuliani Defines Donald Trump as an ‘Economic Genius’ and Hillary Clinton as a ‘Woman’

And the opening paragraph to the story:

Top Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani referred to the Republican nominee as “a man who has this kind of economic genius” in the same sentence as he called Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton simply “a woman.”

Wow. That’s some outrageous chauvinism right there, isn’t it? That Rudy Giuliani (and by extension Donald Trump and anyone who would vote for him) clearly hates women.

Anyone who would say that Trump is better than Clinton because she is “simply ‘a woman'” or who says Trump is better ‘than a woman’ is clearly engaging in gender-shaming language that blows a sexist dog whistle to men who couldn’t possibly vote for Clinton (clearly the superior candidate) for the sole purpose that she lacks male parts.

What an outrageous thing for Giuliani to say!

Except, of course, he didn’t say it.

Here’s what he actually said: (emphasis mine)

“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails?”

Gee, that’s kind of an important modifier at the end of the “woman” reference, isn’t it?

Yeah. To quote Giuliani as a sexist pig, they actually interrupted him in mid-sentence! So they could service their headlines and captions (and their agendas) the media actually cut him off and printed his incomplete thought.

Here’s the video:

Seriously, it’s not even a close call.

Giuliani was clearly contrasting Trump’s business acumen with Clinton’s sordid track record in public service which continues to languish under the cloud of suspicion and multiple FBI investigations. He referred to her as “a woman” while conducting the comparison because, well, she’s a woman.

Just examine the sentence and imagine Hillary Clinton were not a woman. Insert “man” instead:

“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a man, and the only thing he’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out his emails?”

Is there anything strange about that sentence when it is reoriented to male-specific pronouns? Of course not. Man, for a political movement that claims gender is irrelevant and gender-specific words and pronouns should be eliminated, they certainly are making a big deal out of Giuliani properly identifying Clinton correctly.

Even more maddening is the end of the article where ABC News leaves an deceitful coda to their write-up:

Giuliani’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request to elaborate on or clarify his comment.

Why is this deceitful? Because the comment was made on ABC News!

If the statement was misogynist and demeaning and sexist, why didn’t ABC News call him on it the second he made it?  They didn’t. In fact, the next question posed to Giuliani from Clinton surrogate ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos showed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with how Giuliani phrased his answer:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say it shows that he’s a genius, but Mr. Trump himself in the past has criticized people for not paying taxes. He has tweet from 2012: “Half of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling government debt.” And even in this campaign, he’s taked on — taken on hedge fund managers who avoided taxes. Let’s listen.

If the former Clinton adviser turned serious, impartial journalist thought Giuliani had just made a sexist comment, wouldn’t he have called him on it right there?

And yet, he continued to ask several questions for several more minutes after that. In fact, This Week conducted its panel discussion after the interview and none of the liberals journalists on that panel raised the issue.

But in their own write-up they add a suspicious tagline saying “Giuliani’s office did not immediately respond” to their request for a comment. Clearly suggesting that they were hiding or ashamed or entrenched when ABC News had every opportunity to ask him while he was sitting live on their set!

Of course, these days the truth doesn’t matter in cases involving Hillary Clinton and the protection of her candidacy. As of now Google had over 35,000 hits on the phrase “Giuliani Says Trump Better For US ‘Than a Woman'”. And variations of the story were trending on multiple social media outlets.

My favorite result comes from the deceptive manipulators at the Washington Post. Look at the Google result from WaPo on this story:

Looks like just another dishonest write-up of the edited, partial thought from the former NYC mayor, right? But, when you click on the article, here is the headline:

Trump supporters defend the GOP nominee as a ‘genius’ with taxes

Hm. Talk about a buried lede, right? I mean, they got the Google click on the “Giuliani is a sexist for referring to Hillary Clinton as a ‘mere woman'” search but they didn’t headline or lede the article with that part of the story. Well, where does it appear in the article?  Nowhere. There is absolutely nothing in the article by Philip Rucker and Jenna Johnson that refers to or mentions the quote (or even the misquote) from Giuliani.

Washington Post just made sure their article was optimized to take advantage of the false quote to drive traffic to their article.

I started this post by saying “The media really sucks.” I think it’s best to end on that note as well.