After a particularly disastrous performance in any venture, there are usually two groups of people: ones who reflect, retool, and try again, and ones who point fingers trying to find a scapegoat. This past week, CNN got a load of people from the Left doing the latter after their debate between President Brick Tamland and Donald Trump.
Well, unless you want to go with the idea Donald Trump zapped the President with an energy weapon that made him look like, well, himself.
And this Leftist dumbfuck wasn’t the only one. Leftists all over the Social Media Network Formerly Known as Twitter came up with any number of excuses, but the general consensus was CNN fucked President Tamland.
And now we’re going to see why that is quite possibly the shittiest take ever.
CNN
What the Left thinks it means – a cable news network who is in the back pocket of Donald Trump
What it really means – a once and hopefully no longer DNC stenographer
I know I’ve gone over some of this stuff before, so I’ll keep it brief. When CNN first went on the air, it was a media marvel. A 24 hour news channel that you could tune in to any time of the day or night and get caught up on the day’s events. It was novel and changes the face of news forever.
Over time, though, the novelty wore off and they had to start generating buzz (and revenue) somehow. And, let’s face it, Bernard Shaw Is My Daddy t-shirts weren’t exactly flying off the shelves. Then, the first Gulf War came about and CNN got a whole new set of eyes on it. And with those eyes came a feeling of invincibility. No one else could do what they did as well as they could do it. They were Kings and Queens of the Mountain.
Which made them cocky and sloppy. Over time, their on-air talent and their talent behind the scenes started letting their political biases creep into the product. And eventually, the network started being called the Clinton News Network after its mostly favorable coverage of President Bill “I Don’t Know Where My Pants Are, Why Do You Ask?” Clinton.
And if you thought CNN wanted to slob Slick Willie’s knob, watching them cover Barack “I Don’t Know Where My Balls Are, Ask Michelle” Obama would make even the most tenured sex worker look positively virginal.
Put simply, CNN is in the tank for the Left. So, it boggles the mind how the Left could even consider CNN to be on Trump’s side. Even the two moderators of the Trump-Tamland debate were on record as being critical of the former President. And in Jake Tapper’s case, that criticism was rather pointed. So, when they handled the debacle…I mean debate with a fairly even tone, I was honestly surprised.
And apparently so were the Leftists. They wanted Tapper and Dana Bash to fact check Trump on the spot instead of letting him say what he wanted. (No word yet from these same Leftists if they wanted the two to fact check Biden in the same manner, by the way.) But there’s one tiny problem with that approach: they were moderators, not fact checkers. And after the Candy Crowley debacle in 2012, I would think Leftists wouldn’t want moderators to let their masks slip that much.
This change from being a reliable Leftist media outlet to something closer to centrist is by design. Recent leadership changes within CNN signaled a move back towards the straight news reporting they were once known for while allowing for a narrower focus on prominent news stories. While still not quite as centrist as some would say CNN is, they’re at least acknowledging there’s room for improvement.
Which, of course, makes Leftists lose their collectivist shit.
The thing is it’s frightfully easy to be a Leftist media outlet. All you need to do is find a way to keep money rolling in since you’re preaching to the same choir night after night. CNN used to be able to do this, but with the advent of MSNBC on the further Left and Fox News on the Right, it found itself trying to appeal to both sides and making nobody happy.
Why, it’s almost as if alienating potential audience members is a bad fucking idea!
So, from a business standpoint, CNN moving closer to the middle is fiscally responsible. Whether people still see it as a viable news source is yet to be seen. And judging from Leftist reactions to even the slightest move to the right of Trotsky, it didn’t go over well.
This is for a couple of reasons. First, Leftists suck at basic economics. Second, they tend to look at things through an emotional lens (which helps explain the first point). And third, Leftists hate anything that removes even an iota of power from their grasp or exposes their ideology to ridicule.
Enter President Tamland’s debate performance, which is less of a disaster than a Hindenburg movie by Michael Bay written by Tommy Wiseau. Although I would pay good money for Wiseau to make a cameo just to say “Oh hi-drogen!”
You can stop booing now.
Since Leftists are less capable of admitting a mistake than The Fonz, immediately CNN became the primary reason President Tamland looks like, well, himself. Of course, the real reason Leftists attacked CNN for Tamland’s disaster is not that they went out of their way to make him look bad, but that…they noticed he looked bad and didn’t come to his defense. They tried to do some damage control after the debate by fact-checking Trump and Tamland, but the damage was done. Tamland looked frail, confused, and without mental clarity. But at least we beat Medicare, amirite?
And after weeks and weeks of denying it, CNN among others had to admit President Tamland was not firing on all cylinders. Or maybe on any cylinders, for that matter. No more “cheap fakes.” No more deep fakes. No more right wing talking points. The Emperor had no clothes, but maybe had on adult diapers.
I have my issues (or subscriptions as the case may be) with CNN, but I have to defend them here. They didn’t cause President Tamland to look bad, and that’s even with all the preparations he did prior to the debate (including going to the debate stage). He’s just that bad of a candidate this time around, and no about of finger-pointing is going to change that.
So, to any Leftists reading this, lay off CNN. It’s not their fault your side decided to run a Strom Thurmond body double in 2024. You had your chance to pick someone else, even with the knowledge he was getting as sharp as a Nerf ball on the regular. It’s your fuck-up, so enjoy the ride.
And as for CNN, welcome to what conservatives and other non-Leftists have experienced for decades! Don’t worry. We have drinks, snacks, and more open-minded people than the Left. And what’s more, we validate parking!
