HuffPost Claims Executed Inmate Was a 'Victim of DeSantis' - But Look What Article Cleverly Left Out
The far-left HuffPost sided with a man who slashed a mother’s throat and killed a cop in order to score a sleazy political point against Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday.
The site obviously never hides its left-wing slant, and serious people never expect substantive reporting or opinions from its pages.
But a story written by “reporter” Jessica Schulberg and published by the junk outlet sent Ariana Huffington’s creation to a shocking new low.
The website offered up this abomination of a headline: “Florida Executes Man Used As ‘Political Pawn’ By Ron DeSantis.”
In reality, the man committed murders in a state where capital punishment was on the table and the state carried out its lawful duty to exact justice for the victims.
Schulberg led a Thursday-evening story with a quote from twice-convicted killer Donald Dillbeck, 59, who politicized his own death before he was killed by lethal injection in Starke, Florida, on Thursday evening.
“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” Dillbeck stated in a comment to open Schulberg’s piece. “But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse.”
Schulberg’s angle to the story, which was sympathetic to Dillbeck in its tone, cleverly left out the grisly details of how he ended up on death row.
Here are the facts about him, per the Associated Press:
- As a teen, Dillbeck stabbed a man in Indiana while he attempted to rob the victim of his CB radio.
- While on the lam in Florida, Dillbeck shot and killed Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall in Fort Myers Beach with his own gun.
- After almost a decade into a life sentence for the cold-blooded murder, Dillbeck escaped.
- While he was out, Dillbeck procured a paring knife and stabbed 44-year-old Faye Vann 20 times with it before he slashed her throat in Tallahassee.
HuffPost postured as if it had taken issue with the fact Dillbeck’s jury voted 8-4 when it sentenced him to death. Schulberg slanted her article in favor of unanimous decisions.
DeSantis supports capital punishment by a majority vote, which was the law when Vann was brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Schulberg cited sources who explained to her how archaic they believed Dillbeck’s execution was.
But none of that was the point of her article. The point was not to highlight Dillbeck as a man done wrong by the justice system.
The narrative was certainly was not to shed light on Vann and other female victims of violent crime.
The story was published and disseminated purely as an attack against DeSantis.
Vann’s adult children actually thanked the governor personally in a hand-written letter for not stopping their mother’s killer from meeting his fate. Schulberg left that out of her piece until DeSantis ally Christina Pushaw shared it online.
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) February 24, 2023
Perspective… this monster killed a police officer, went to jail, escaped, stabbed this mom to death in a parking lot at the Tallahassee Mall at random, and Huffington Post thinks HE is the victim.
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) February 24, 2023
HuffPost was rightly eviscerated on Twitter all evening after it shared Schulberg’s obscene piece on its opinion page.
This is beyond pathetic. In an attempt to own a politician you don’t like, you quote and thus implicitly support, even if in some roundabout, attenuated sense, a literal murderer. This man was a scumbag who robbed two children of their mother. You should delete this in shame.
— 𝐄𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚 (@EudaimoniaEsq) February 24, 2023
You’re taking the side of a murderer who was convicted of killing a sheriff’s deputy and a young mom … to own Gov DeSantis?
There is literally no low for this despicable publication.
— Jenna Ellis 🇺🇸 (@JennaEllisEsq) February 24, 2023
What is wrong with you?
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) February 24, 2023
Wow, carrying water for someone who killed multiple people.
You’re outlet is pure garbage at this point.
— Frank (@richardrahl1086) February 24, 2023
You people are sick.
— Ryan Petty (@rpetty) February 24, 2023
HuffPost’s editors are so desperate for content they feel could harm a popular Republican they opened an article with a quote that accused him of doing “worse” than two gruesome murders.
In doing so, the outlet is currently at rock bottom — which is saying a lot.
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