CNN fires longtime host and anchor Don Lemon
When Nikki Haley made ageist comments about the president, Don Lemon said, essentially, you're no spring chicken yourself, honey. She rightfully took umbrage and opportunistically decided to play the sexism card.
What chafes is that Haley's perfunctory slur against the president went unrebuked and unapologized for, but CNN nevertheless roared to defend her honor as a woman. (Whicn smacks of sexism too, but that's another topic.)
As usual, Republicans can dish it out but can't take it. They called Hillary a murderer and satanist, but when she called them deplorable, it was a bridge too far.
The situation with Lemon and Haley involved sharp words between two grown people. I say those two grown people could have worked things out.
But the situation with Biden involves a huge portion of the media bullying one person because of an immutable physical characteristic, his age. They have extended this to an entire class of people: ie, no one over 70 or 75 should run for president. Now that's ageism!
In such cases of media and political bullying, the victim usually has no recourse. Joe and Hillary can't pull a Nikki Haley. They can't get half the people in the media fired for calling them demented or corrupt. They just have to hunker down and take it.
Nikki Haley, however, gets to wrap herself in estro-victimhood because a boy had the temerity to slap a girl back, and playground rules say that can't be done.
And CNN gets to virtue signal that they were protecting a damsel in distress -- all damsels in distress! -- when in fact they found a handy pretext to dump a low-rated anchor without being accused of racism or homophobia.
Meanwhile the network lurches ever rightward.
(Published in the Washington Post, April 24, 2023.)
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