It’s going to be hilarious to watch in a few days when the judge’s 14-day temporary order restoring CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press pass expires. Maybe the Secret Service will tackle Acosta this time! (Lord, we don’t ask You for much, but just this once…)
Meanwhile, the entire media industrial fake news complex is up in arms because the White House is demanding that reporters act like mature adults who will follow the rules of tradition, decorum, polite society and Western civilization.
In case you missed our earlier coverage of it, CNN’s Jim Acosta karate-chopped a girl intern in the arm at a White House press conference when she attempted to stop his grand standing and allow other reporters to ask questions. The White House revoked Acosta’s press pass and banned him from the building, noting that grown men should not hit girls.
“What kind of stupid rule is that?” demanded Minnesota’s newly-elected Attorney General Keith Ellison and former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
CNN sued the White House, claiming this was a First Amendment violation of freedom of the press. Fox News, operating under its new “We Stab You in the Back, You Decide” tagline, made itself part of the story by joining CNN in the lawsuit.
The CNN lawsuit had nearly as many holes in it as a Jake Tapper exclusive with an “anonymous source” in the Pentagon. How exactly was “freedom of the press” imperiled by kicking Jim Acosta out of the White House? Trump didn’t ban all of CNN from covering the White House. CNN has approximately 4,000 employees. Send one of the other 3,999 employees to ask questions at the White House – preferably one whose mother taught him that grown men shouldn’t karate chop girls.
CNN filed suit under First Amendment grounds, obviously forgetting that the First Amendment reads that “Congress shall make no law” restricting the press… and the White House is in the Executive branch. And again, CNN had 3,999 other options besides Jim Acosta – and no other reporters or news outlets were threatened by Acosta’s banning, unless you consider having to behave by rules as “being threatened.”
After the judge ruled that Acosta could have his press pass back for a temporary, 14-day period, CNN immediately declared this to be the biggest victory of the media since they got Richard Nixon to resign. Acosta’s 14-day period is about to expire and the Trump White House, in typical hilarious fashion, has already sent CNN a note telling them that Jim Acosta shouldn’t bother to show up for work on Day 15. It’s gonna be lit!
Maybe Antifa will show up at the White House to protest on Acosta’s behalf as “The Man” takes his press pass away again.
It was fascinating to watch the media circle the wagons and melt down over a single reporter being asked to behave like a grownup. If only conservatives would show that type of solidarity when Facebook, Twitter and Google ban “nationalists,” “white supremacists” and Alex Jones!
At the thought of having to follow the rules of decorum and polite society, the New York Times’ chief White House correspondent Peter Baker moaned that the situation would be like having “a sword hanging over our heads.” So, here we have another example of a New York Times elitist throwing out a reference to classical literature that he is too functionally illiterate to understand.
Damocles was an inveterate suck-up in the court of King Dionysius in ancient Greece, according to an anecdote referenced by Cicero in his Tusculanae Disputationes – which Peter Baker totally sits around reading in his free time!
Damocles remarked about how awesome it must be for Dionysius to be the king since everybody loved him so much. Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for a day and did so with one catch: Dionysius suspended a sword over Damocles’ head using a single strand of horsehair. This symbolized the constant danger and dread that a monarch has to live under, with people from all sides constantly scheming to murder him.
So… you know… it’s just like not being allowed to scream Russia conspiracy theories at the President of the United States in his house!
A big irony of this situation is that real journalists used to have an actual set of guidelines for covering the president. But they threw those rules out and refused to police the idiots in their own ranks. So, here we are with the White House having to write the rules down as if the media are a bunch of toddlers who need basic instructions: Line up in a straight line. Don’t hit girls. Raise your hand and wait to be called on before screeching about Russia. Wipe front to back.
For example, the rule for many decades for journalists, regardless of whether they were White House correspondents or junior reporter Jimmy at the local rag with a newspaper circulation of 500 on a busy week, was that you referred to the President of the United States by his honorific. Whether you were covering President Kennedy or President Reagan, you referred to him as “President” with a capital ‘P.’
But then CNN’s Anderson Cooper decided one day that it would be hilarious to say “Bush” on TV every day, so the rule was suddenly thrown out the window by the entire media without explanation. Curiously, that rule came back for 8 years when “President” B. Hussein Obama was in the White House – but now it’s gone again. The walls are closing in on Trump!
Another rule was that you never – ever—interrupt the President of the United States when he is speaking. You’re a reporter and he is the leader of the free world. Shut up until he finishes with his answer before asking a follow-up question. Period. You are not there to debate him.
Any reporter who didn’t observe the rules when covering the White House was fired by their editor or news director the second they arrived back at their office.
The rules that the media used to enforce for itself prevented grandstanding drama queens like Jim Acosta from becoming a problem. If you couldn’t control your toddler-like instincts to scream and wet yourself at the White House, you were fired or reassigned to cover a quilting club in North Dakota. President Trump didn’t turn the media into a hot mess; it did that all on its own. But as usual, he is now the one that has to come in and clean it up.
