Brian Stelter Defends The Commission

"GOP operative joins CNN" is getting a LOT of criticism, especially from Dems. But love it or hate it, political insiders have been joining newsrooms for decades. The more viewpoints represented in newsrooms, the better. As for the critiques, @CNNPR declined to comment.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 19, 2019

After all, as a journalist, your primary duty is to defend the decisions of the giant corporation that pays your salary.

Or so I am told.

A more accurate analysis of CNN's night moves can be found at this non-CNN source here.  From Vox:

CNN hires GOP operative with no journalism experience to run its 2020 coverage
Sarah Isgur once referred to her new employer as the “Clinton News Network.”

Also from WaPo:

CNN’s hiring of a GOP operative as political editor is even worse than it looks

This is why all the hughing (misspelling intentional) and crying over whatever will become of the  constellation of discredited Trump hacks and toadies après le déluge is nothing but a lot of meaningless hand-waving and Beltway virtue-signaling.

As happened with the cohort of hacks and toadies who misspent their journalist youth helping Republicans try to drive Bill Clinton from office just for shits and giggles, and the hacks and toadies who shamelessly carried water for every act of depravity by Cheney Administration, and the hacks and toadies who let the entire Republican Party put on "Tea Party" makeup and slip away in the night unmolested after the Cheney Administration collapsed, and hacks and toadies who spent the 2016 campaign perched on stools on cable teevee answering every single fucking question about Donald Trumps fitness for office with "Both Sides Do It"...

...I am absolutely confident that nothing will happen to discredited Trump hacks and toadies.  No price will be exacted.  No acts of atonement will be asked of them.  As has been true for Republican-enabling hacks and toadies for decades, they will be quietly slipped into the deck of Sunday show, cable news and op-ed column regulars, and their fellow employees will be warned to lay off asking them any questions about their sketchy past.

Depending on which Beltway gig they manage to negotiate for themselves, some of them may have to perform some small ritual of distancing themselves from the catastrophes they so enthusiastically participated in, as is happening right now with the Script Keeper:

Before: "There was NO COLLUSION WHATSOEVER."

Now: "NOT ME! I HAVE NO EXPOSURE." pic.twitter.com/gICLqWOamP

— Matt Rogers 🦅 (@Politidope) February 20, 2019

Some of them will pen short, bloodless "mistakes were made" columns before getting back to the important job of being disappointed with the moral failings of everyone else:

David Brooks' sickening Iraq apologia: How the New York Times hack just rewrote history 

The conservative New York Times columnist explains what he's learned from his Iraq war boosting: largely nothing

Some of them, whose idea is "principle" is keeping a wet finger in the wind at all times, will simply execute a whiplash-fast pivot the minute the wind shifts and begin preaching indignantly against the position they themselves had indignantly defended just moments before. 

And some of them have such an inexplicably iron grip on the yam-sack of the Beltway that a chair will always be held open for them --

Most frequent ‘Meet the Press’ guest in 2009: Newt Gingrich.

-- no matter how often they reverse and then re-reverse themselves...

...irrespective of what they do...

...or what they say...

...no matter how patently ludicrous...

The Man Who Broke Politics 

Newt Gingrich turned partisan battles into bloodsport, wrecked Congress, and paved the way for Trump’s rise. Now he’s reveling in his achievements.

...it may be:

The increasing personal nastiness toward people who work for President Trump reflects the left’s understanding that they are losing. Nastiness reflects desperation not strength. They can’t win the argument so they use nastiness. Sad and dangerous.

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) June 23, 2018

Our political media has been so irreparable broken on such a fundamental level for so long, that no individual insult to the ancient and noble profession of ink-stained wretchery surprises me any more.  It is a lawless gangster's paradise run by greedy, ruthless assholes who do not give a damn how much damage their activities inflict on the rest of us.

So when you see the occasional fleck of gold glinting in sewer of our political media, cherish it, but also remember that in 1925 when Al Capone, Chicago's bloodiest and not notorious crime boss, gave $58,000 to the police widows and orphans’ fund, he wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart.

It was a calculated PR strategy, staged to make it easier for him to continue his reign of mayhem and murder.

Just part of the price of doing business.

Behold, my Twitter Legal Defense Fund!