The most charitable view of what CNN is doing may be that they simply enjoy having insiders who have access to a great deal of inside information. When Clapper denounced Trump’s revoking John Brennan’s security clearance and lamented that he wasn’t sure if his own was still intact, he may well have been concerned that their commentator gigs would dry up.
Such men are not so much journalists as living, springing leaks, but that’s fine with CNN. That’s strategically useful intel, for purposes both journalistic and political. You’ll be forgiven if you can’t tell the difference.
Another figure who keeps getting airtime because he fills an establishment need—unofficial (and of course unelected) spokesman for the military-industrial complex—is neoconservative commentator William Kristol. Kristol teaches us that you don’t have to be right to get airtime. He’s been wrong on everything for years, from the Iraq War to the motivations and inspirations of today’s politics.
Kristol should be completely in his element making political horserace predictions, but he keeps getting those wrong, too—while defending the wrong principles. His clout has diminished so much that when he sent a tweet endorsing Cris Dosev, a 2018 Republican primary opponent for my House seat—and called me “one of the worst GOP members”—not only did Dosev get crushed, he reportedly fretted that Kristol’s endorsement would be the kiss of death. I hope he endorses all of my opponents, and for the right price he well may.
Kristol is not the only pundit who makes terrible predictions. Michael Barone predicted Romney would defeat Obama in 2012 by one hundred electoral votes. New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the internet would have no significant long-term impact on the economy. Dick Morris has been wrong about virtually everything—though back in 2012, he did foretell Trump making good on his long-gestating plans to run for president.
The late Roger Ailes, in his final year at Fox News, recognized that there ought to be consequences for pundits who often err but never doubt. Rupert Murdoch fired Ailes over sexual scandals just as Trump ascended as Republican nominee in the summer of 2016. There are rules about staff, Roger! A year later, Ailes passed away. It would have been fun to watch him wield an axe against all the talking heads who got 2016 so wrong. Ailes was ahead of the rest of Fox News and virtually all the pundit class in recognizing that Trump spoke to the Americans conservatives were trying to reach. “Between the Hudson River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, people love Donald Trump,” Ailes is portrayed saying in The Loudest Voice.
Fox News continues to benefit from the talent choices made by Ailes. Sean Hannity provided the pivotal platform to deliver the facts, winning nightly ratings during the most critical moments of the Trump presidency. Judge Jeanine drove home key themes weekly. Tucker Carlson mocked the absurd claims of the opposition with biting zest. Laura Ingraham set debate panels that were critical to win nightly. Martha MacCallum offered a newsy chance to get information into the bloodstream. Lou Dobbs attacked Republicans who wandered. Each piece was vital to success in its own way.
President Trump called the media the “enemy of the people” one month after taking the oath of office. He set off four years of the media pretending to be afraid that Trump would gut the First Amendment and censor any news he didn’t like. Trump didn’t have to censor the press to expose their stupidity. He prefers jousting with them to show just how dumb they can be.
Some ought to count themselves lucky they don’t get brought up on charges, though, given how deeply enmeshed they are in the possibly criminal political controversies about which they write. They aren’t just bystanders. They facilitate the criminality.
When Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report came out in December 2019, the press said it was reasonable for the Obama administration to raise questions about whether Trump associates had inappropriate Russia ties. They ignored the report’s conclusion that everything the Obama administration did from that point forward was negligent.
Andrew McCabe and others green-lit an investigation that they knew had little substance, but even more disturbing is the dishonest role the press played in perpetuating that investigation. McCabe and other deep state operatives would leak items about Trump and his associates, then point to the resulting press reports as “evidence” to justify the continuation of the coup attempt.
Reporters effectively got bribes, too, with their companies paying Democratic oppo research firm Fusion GPS to get Trump dirt, while GPS in turn paid reporters. Since such payments were made from late 2015 to late 2017, this looks like interference with both the election and the then new Trump administration.
Pompous, stick-up-their-ass journos were on the take and on the make for the Democratic Party—albeit indirectly—while they lectured us about corruption. This sort of behavior is not an accident. It isn’t just an unconscious bias caused by going to a liberal arts college with mandatory gender identity sensitivity training, or attending too many Resistance rallies. This is conscious, paid-for propaganda. And ultimately, the target isn’t Trump. It’s you. The media want to mislead you. They really are your enemy, and they are armed and very dangerous.
But if the media hate Trump and an awakened American public, what exactly is it that they love? No matter how rich or powerful the media and their political allies are, they still want to see themselves as champions of equality, as helpers of the “little guy.” Narcissism is what powers them.
One weird pattern that emerges, maybe not a very strategically wise one on their part, is that they always try to tear down conservative winners and signal-boost left-wing losers. I say this is strategically unwise because some members of the public start to think that maybe leftists aren’t just heroic underdogs. Maybe they deserve their defeat.
This pro-loser strategy, for lack of a better label, gives us phenomena, or pseudo-phenomena, such
