What Is Wrong With You, CNN?

One of the abiding phenomena of the past two weeks has been the stubborn refusal of prominent media to apportion blame for the government shutdown — and more precisely, the unwillingness of President Obama to negotiate with Republicans — where it rightly resides.

To review: Obama recognized that a constitutional crisis of material proportions was in the offing, predicated on the anti-democratic notion that an elected minority in one legislative branch could reverse standing law — not by the accepted vehicle of voting majorities, but by extortionate fiat.

It wasn’t complicated, and it wasn’t oblique; Obama said as much countless times, and did so in simple, unequivocal language.

But leave it to CNN to miss the point. They weren’t the only ones, by a long shot. But CNN’s reaction on October 16 to the imminent Senate compromise — whereby Democrats were perceived to give “little” in the face of extortion, and Republicans were seen to give “a lot” — is emblematic of terminal confusion, and not a little mendacity:

Quoth the estimable Ashleigh Banfield, lecturing Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC):

Forgive me for not popping the champagne corks, because while we’re celebrating this breaking news that there’s a deal, it’s just a temporary deal.

We’re still nowhere near a solution to the crisis that the United States of America finds itself in because of people like you and your other colleagues on the Hill.

And it wasn’t just poor Ashleigh; here’s David Simpson and Saeed Ahmed, writing for CNN’s Political Ticker days before the shutdown began:

Ticktock. Ticktock.

Just over a week remains. If the Democrats and Republicans don’t stop bickering and agree to how the U.S. should pay its bills, the federal government will shut down, come October 1.

We expect this sort of skewed, breathless devotion to false equivalence from media sources who make no pretensions of objectivity.

But what is CNN, under the reign of former NBC honcho Jeff Zucker? Does it aspire to credibility, or just to raw ratings… and journalistic ethics be damned?

The question, on the evidence, answers itself.

By: rhb

Rob is a NYC-based Internet entrepreneur. He's also a businessman and job creator (wait: doesn't demand create jobs?) who understands the sense, and the eventual predominance, of the progressive agenda.