When you’re on Team MS NOW, you think there’s nothing funny going on when Jim Acosta starts lecturing about civility in press briefings. During his time at CNN, Jim Acosta may have been the rudest White House reporter in modern history, but only with one president. On Saturday’s Velshi, substitute host Charles Coleman welcomed in Acosta and fellow White House screamer April Ryan.
Coleman asked for Acosta’s reaction to how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt excused Trump trying to silence a rude reporter with a “Quiet, Piggy.” Typically, the liberal journalists think you can exhibit maximum rudeness to Trump – like calling him Hitler – but he is now allowed to be rude in return. But his strategy in response – for the anti-Trump press to stop covering Trump until he behaves – would be a huge win for the White House.
Acosta insisted that any boss in any newsroom would be fired for being this rude to a female reporter.
ACOSTA: And imagine if this were your daughter, or your sister, or your mother being spoken to in this fashion. And that’s why you know, I strongly believe and I there are people who disagree with me on this, that other folks in the press in the room should speak up in that moment and say, ‘Mr. President, that is not appropriate,’ And, you know, double down on the questions that were asked. ‘Why didn’t you answer that question? Why are you resorting to personal attacks? Why can’t you take the heat? What’s going on here?’”
But what this snit fit reveals is: the media can’t “take the heat,” and they can’t help “resorting to personal attacks.” If the public were the referee of civility, they might punish both sides. But the media think civility is a one-way street. Here’s how Acosta pushed his boycott idea:
ACOSTA: I think the only solution to all of this is collective action. We need to see the networks get together, perhaps with some of the major newspapers. Send a letter to the white house, send it to Caroline Leavitt and say, ‘listen, if the president does not stop these attacks, we’re not coming into your oval office. We’re not going to ride with you on air force one. You can have fox and all these other sycophantic outlets covering you, but we’re just not going to do it. We’re going to take a break for a while until you clean up your act. That’s what I think they should do.
During Trump’s first term, the White House temporarily pulled Acosta’s White House pass (but none of the other CNN White House reporters). The entire leftist media establishment battled for Acosta to get back in, so he could scream some more. Why couldn’t he have tried the boycott then? It seems obvious that since he’s not the Chief White House Showboat any more, he doesn’t have any skin in the game.
