A nice demonstration of how the left-media’s “narrative” sausage gets made. The headline at TPM:

My goodness. Rand got testy with another reporter, to the point where he actually stormed off? Maybe Megyn Kelly was right to complain about how thin-skinned he seems.

This certainly sounds “problematic.”

https://twitter.com/kath_krueger/status/586564640349487104

Good lord. They’re literally blacking out the media to shield him from tough questions. No wonder Politico is aghast about his “particularly prickly demeanor.”

Now watch the clip and see what the fuss is about. According to Paul, it wasn’t him or his staff that shut the lights; it was CNN’s producers, who were eager to get him to sit down for a scheduled interview with Dana Bash. He was on a tight deadline, he agreed to take one more question, he took it, and that’s that. And the question that got cut off, citing a poll showing most white Republicans opposing him on sentencing reform, wouldn’t have been a tough one for him to spin. You can spitball how he might have answered it yourself: “Maybe one reason Republicans feel the way they do is because no one in our party has given them an alternate viewpoint on that issue in many years. My strength is that I can make our tent bigger; even Republicans who disagree with me about something might reconsider if they think my platform can build a durable conservative majority.” Reminding Rand Paul that his views are out of the Republican mainstream is like reminding Barack Obama that he’s the first black president. Trust me, he’s well aware.

Mollie Hemingway, having digested days’ worth of whining from the media about Paul’s snippiness, reminds some very special snowflakes that they’re less special than they think:

I get that the media are hypersensitive to how they’re treated. In my experience there is no group in the country more defensive and hostile to constructive criticism than reporters. The rest of America, however, doesn’t feel that journalists need special protections from the people they interview. Most Americans don’t like the media and have absolutely no problem seeing a politician push back if warranted. And the media don’t make big productions out of President Obama’s notable snippiness on the very, very, very, very, very few times reporters have pushed him…

Journalists. You’re the reason why politicians have to script everything and pretend they don’t believe things they do. Because you are incapable of dealing with the slightest variation in style, rhetoric, substance, without losing your minds. Get a hold of yourselves. The world does not revolve around you…

The media have more than enough power as it is. The idea that people can’t respond to them outside the narrow parameters they set is just ridiculous.

And Paul didn’t even do that here. He responded within the parameters: One last question. He took it and left. But the narrative, that he’s prickly with journalists and that you should give even the tiniest wet crap about that fact, somehow remains. Exit question via John Ekdahl: “Why isn’t everyone having an emotional breakdown about Rand being rude to a male reporter?”