February 10, 2017

Media Criticism of Conway Reveals a Double Standard

CNN has grave concerns about White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s credibility and even refused to have her on its Sunday show recently, apparently to protect viewers from her Jedi mind trick powers.

CNN has grave concerns about White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s credibility and even refused to have her on its Sunday show recently, apparently to protect viewers from her Jedi mind trick powers.

CNN subsequently invited Conway to appear on the network, infuriating a chorus of liberal media critics who insist she must be shunned like a harlot in an Amish colony.

Now, I should disclose that I know Conway a bit and like her. At the same time, no one who’s read my columns over the last two years would accuse me of being a cheerleader for her or her boss.

Conway’s job is, at least in part, to sell the president’s agenda and fight back against a hostile press. She is very good at it. Too good, apparently.

Bill Moyers, who had a similar job for President Lyndon Johnson, lamented CNN’s decision not to permanently ban Conway, which is the “the surest way to prevent a professional con artist from using you to pollute the airwaves with one flagrant lie after another.” Moyers says Conway is the “administration’s official Queen of Bulls—,” which is an interesting charge coming from someone who used to clean out LBJ’s stables gustily.

Journalism professor Jay Rosen thinks there’s little journalistic value in giving Conway a platform. “The logic is, this is a representative of the president,” Rosen said on the Recode Media podcast. “This is somebody who can speak for the Trump administration. But if we find that what Kellyanne Conway says is routinely or easily contradicted by Donald Trump, then that rationale disappears.”

“Another reason to interview Kellyanne Conway is, our viewers want to understand how the Trump world thinks,” Rosen added. “But if the end result of an interview is more confusion about what the Trump world thinks, then that rationale evaporates.”

I can understand Rosen’s frustration. President Trump’s surrogates, including Vice President Mike Pence, have mastered the art of defending straw-man positions that don’t reflect the actions and views of the president himself.

But I find this talk of refusing to interview Conway baffling and bizarre. It’s also a bit ironic, given the hysteria this week over Sen. Elizabeth Warren being “silenced” by the Senate. Apparently, using a parliamentary technique to cut off a demagogic stemwinder in the Senate is outrageously sexist. But cavalierly insulting Conway, the first successful female presidential campaign manager, is fine — and calling for her media banishment is the height of journalistic seriousness.

In 2012, Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s national security adviser, flatly lied on five Sunday news shows, saying that the attack on the Benghazi compound was “spontaneous” and the direct result of a “heinous and offensive video.” No one talked of banning her from the airwaves. Nor should they have.

Here’s a news flash for the news industry: Birds are gonna fly, fish are gonna swim, and politicians are gonna lie. The assumption that Conway is uniquely dishonest strikes me as not only preposterous but irrelevant. If she’s that dishonest, a good interviewer will make that clear to the viewer. Personally, I think Jake Tapper is more than capable of holding anyone’s feet to the fire.

The arrogance is remarkable. The Fourth Estate priesthood thinks viewers can’t see through Conway’s spin, so they must be protected from it. It’s a compliment to Conway and her skills, and an admission of incompetence by the press.

But the more important point is that singling out Conway would strike millions of viewers — and voters — as further evidence that the press changes its standards depending on which party is in power. Under President George W. Bush, vast swaths of the media celebrated dissent as the highest form of patriotism. Under President Obama, dissent became the lowest form of racism. And upon Donald Trump’s election, dissent became not only patriotic but a requirement for the new mythopoetic cause of “resistance.”

While not a news organization, “Saturday Night Live” is emblematic of this mindset. Jim Downey, the “SNL” writer in charge of political mockery, insisted that there was simply nothing funny about Obama. “It’s like being a rock climber looking up at a thousand-foot-high face of solid obsidian, polished and oiled,” Downey said. “There’s not a single thing to grab onto — certainly not a flaw or hook that you can caricature.”

The Trump White House, meanwhile, is a bottomless source of japery. That’s fine. But the double standard is obvious to those who don’t share the political biases of “SNL,” “The Daily Show” or, for that matter, CNN.

© 2017 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.