One of the more unpleasant instances of media bias in recent memory was the release of Katie Couric’s “documentary” called Under the Gun. The sham of a show which claimed to be an examination of guns and violence in the United States was quickly revealed to be a partisan hit job which was fraudulently edited to make supporters of the Second Amendment look incompetent. Answers to pertinent questions were left on the cutting room floor and replaced by a clip of members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) staring silently at the camera as if they had no answers.

This resulted in a defamation lawsuit against Couric which was recently dismissed by Judge John Gibney Jr., prompting an immediate appeal by VCDL. (Washington Free Beacon)

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) announced on Tuesday it will appeal a district court’s decision to dismiss their $12 million defamation suit against Katie Couric.

“The VCDL Board of Directors, after careful consideration, has decided that the recent ruling dismissing the VCDL case against Katie Couric, et al, CANNOT STAND!” Philip Van Cleave, VCDL president, said in a message to the group’s members. “The lawsuit has far reaching implications for all Americans. If the media can be allowed to change a person’s words to suit the media’s own needs or beliefs, then a grievous blow will have been struck against the very core of the freedom that the United States stands for!

“NO! We are going to fight this because too much is at stake.”

Before continuing, here’s a video reminder of just how badly Couric butchered that film to push her agenda.

This challenge should have some legs given how baldly partisan the judge was in his ruling. He claimed that the edited scene in the film was “not false” because the VCDL members, “did not answer the question posed by Couric.” In other words, the judge chose to entirely ignore the fact that their answers were edited out based on the fact that he personally didn’t care for the answers they gave. In his ruling, Gibney goes on to defend Couric’s editing by saying that it, “dramatizes the sophistry of the VCDL members.”

Seriously? Sophistry? This is supposed to be a court of law, not a forum for you to attack the plaintiffs.

Then again, we probably shouldn’t be too shocked. Judge Gibney was recommended for his federal court position by Mark Warner and appointed by Barack Obama. That he would be taking such a blatantly hostile position toward a gun rights group is probably more of the norm than any sort of aberration. But now the case goes on to a three member panel of the Fourth Circuit. That’s not going to be a slam dunk either, but the VCDL can at least hope for a somewhat more even-handed hearing there.