It’s been coming down the tracks for a while now – this business of CNN’s Jim Acosta desperately trying to provoke the President of the United States. So, when the White House finally pulled the plug on Acosta’s press credentials, it came as a surprise to no one, save Mr. CNN himself.
...if there is one thing the Fourth Estate loves, it is to protect and defend one of their own.
Indeed, he is shocked and moved beyond words by the support of a press corps that knows how to stick together better than Elmer’s on a piece of paper. He is angry. He is quite literally incensed. He is not, however, contrite.
There’s a bombshell for you. But wait, there’s more.
Mr. Acosta claims innocence all the way around this latest debacle which got him suspended from the White House. He was just doing his job – asking a simple question. He is on every network that will have him, loudly proclaiming his persecution at the hands of The Evil One. Mr. Acosta is playing the victim with vociferous denials of any wrongdoing on his part. In reality, he portrays himself as a media martyr. And if there is one thing the Fourth Estate loves, it is to protect and defend one of their own.
CNN's Jim Acosta
Lies, Damn Lies, and Videotape
Here is the exchange that brought out the hook for Acosta. It’s a full two minutes and 42 seconds of crawl-under-the-pew embarrassment. The CNN White House reporter is not so much asking a question as he is lecturing and heckling the president. Then there’s this business of the intern. Did he or didn’t he “touch her”? Well certainly he didn’t knock her to the ground, but the man is belligerent, loud-mouthed, and pugnacious. He comes off as one of those family members at the Thanksgiving table who is spoiling for a fight and isn’t satisfied until he sends Aunt Thelma running from the room in tears.
Everybody has at least one Jim Acosta in their life. So, what’s the remedy for dealing with such an obstreperous individual?
President Trump usually tries repetition: “That’s enough, That’s enough. That’s enough,” the president is heard saying on camera. But people like Acosta just blow through admonitions like these without taking a breath. Despite the many verbal attempts by Trump to bring the exchange to an end, Mr. Acosta would not quit. And why should he? If he keeps going, maintains the vitriol, then he can achieve his penultimate objective – to make himself the story.
That the media is filled with super-sized egotists is not a newsflash. But occasionally the American public runs up against one or two of these flat screen phonies that insist on taking center stage. These people always see themselves as the lead in the play. They are Hamlet or Juliet awaiting their merited standing ovation.
Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kelly is another case in point. It’s always about her. I doubt Jim Acosta needs any pointers from Kelly on how to make oneself the story. If it’s at all possible to imagine, Jimbo has left her in the dust. Now Mr. CNN has a forum in which to bloviate and lecture, not just the president, but the American people. He will issue his homily about freedom of the press. He will pontificate about how 45 is eroding this crucial fabric of our Republic. Should the media worry that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her well-mannered interns will arrive at the front doors of the White House press corps one by one like storm-troopers and haul them off like the Gestapo? Guaranteed - this will be the Acosta narrative, folks.
Mark my words -- CNN’s star correspondent will be the number-one guest on every Sunday morning talk show this week. Assignment editors all over the Swamp are already scrambling for time slots in which to fit him in. Yes, Jim will be in the Green Room from sunup to sundown. He might as well not bother to remove his make-up at night. Just keep that Pancake Medium Tan Matte finish in your back pocket and you’re good to go, Jim.
The only problem is that a whole lot of people aren’t buying your act any longer. Everybody knows that the White House Press Corps gets one question – and maybe a follow-up. And they all know that the House of the People is a place for decorum, dignity, and at least a modicum of etiquette.
Everybody but you, Mr. Acosta.
