Never-Trumper Jonah Goldberg Lands at CNN With a Thump

Whatever one may think of one-time alleged conservative thought leader and newly minted CNN “contributor” Jonah Goldberg, please don’t consider him a phony.

Conservatives gleefully took their shots at the National Review veteran as the news broke Feb. 7 of Goldberg’s new position. “If there’s a bigger cautionary tale in political punditry than Jonah Goldberg, I don’t know who it is,” tweeted out American Greatness writer Julie Kelly, who has shone in her coverage of the unfair treatment being meted out to the political prisoners of the Jan. 6, 2021, unrest at the U.S. Capitol.

And You’re Still the Same

With all due respect to Kelly, her post is off the mark. There is no fall from grace involved here, rather a natural progression. As Liberty Nation noted in November, CNN went out of its way to sing the praises of Goldberg and fellow Never Trumper Stephen Hayes when they made the “brave” move to abandon gigs at Fox News to express their outrage over the America First utterances of the network’s most popular host, Tucker Carlson.

“The fact that [Goldberg and Hayes] were not being booked on the channel much surely had nothing to do with this not-so-riveting announcement,” LN wrote at the time.

But more interesting is what CNN said. The network’s Brian Stelter’s reaction spoke volumes:

“Every month or so, while conversing with sources at Fox News, I express surprise that Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes are still employed by the network. After all, the two men are reality-based conservative thinkers who refuse to capitulate to Donald Trump.”

There you have it. Goldberg was CNN’s kind of guy long before he ever joined the network.

Which does not make him a fraud. Far from it. “Establishment conservative" always has meant establishment first. The "conservative" portion is just the vehicle being utilized to buttress the Swamp line.

Whether it’s Fox News or CNN, the ruling elite is always being fortified by pundits such as Goldberg. The different wrappers merely denote the particular flavor enhancer to the gruel being fed to viewers.

The fact is that Goldberg is and always has been in line with the political status quo. Therefore, his ending up at CNN is not much of a surprise. His act had grown entirely stale among real conservatives, so now he gets to portray, as Stelter put it, the “reality-based conservative thinker,” as defined by the political left, on its communications organs.

His new job will be to serve as comfort food for progressives who want their thoroughly partisan beliefs about the “dangerous far-right tilt” of today’s Trump-infused Republican Party validated.

Well, it’s work.

The Company Takes Care of Its Own

One must also remember that the Swamp takes care of its own. This was the subject of discussion on a recent Liberty Nation C5 TV video.

A comparison to Jeff Flake is apt.

The former Arizona Republican senator sacrificed his political career on the altar of self-righteously slamming populist political outsider Donald Trump. He was regularly scratched behind the ears for his deeds by the dominant media establishment. GOP voters back home were not as pleased.

Flake surely had to know what the consequences would be. He also undoubtedly understood that the ruling apparatus he was carrying water for would throw golden parachutes his way.

And so it did. First, Flake was dispatched to CBS News to serve as a “contributor” – there’s that word again – to its political coverage. But this was a doomed landing spot from the beginning. For he still had to pretend to toe a “conservative” viewpoint even as he was there strictly to deliver stolid establishment talking points approved for good Republicans.

Flake soon fizzled out at the network. Was this the end of the line for the dutiful establishment conservative? Hardly. He is now Joe Biden’s ambassador to Turkey.

Flake serves as an important symbol to the Adam Kinzinger-types who inhabit the Swamp: If you stand by us, even repeated failure will not hold you back.

Goldberg is a good company man. As long as the Swamp troughs remain filled, he will always have a comfortable feeding spot waiting for him.

~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.