Last night, CNN held a “town hall” on school violence. What it was notable for was the a) audience that was obviously stacked with anti-gun people, b) the nasty personal attacks on Marco Rubio and Dana Loesch from kids who probably don’t have a driver’s license yet, c) the unwillingness of the moderator to control the lynch mob ambiance created, and d) the cravenness of the county sheriff whose department had a long history with the shooter.
And there was this:
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/966577114655805442
“CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,” Haab said. “I don’t think that it’s going get anything accomplished. It’s not gonna ask the true questions that all the parents and teachers and students have.”
And now CNN is calling Haab a liar…which just a couple of days ago I was told was strictly off limits.
There is absolutely no truth to this. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever. After seeing an interview with Colton Haab, we invited him to participate in our town hall along with other students and administrators from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Colton’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began, which we regretted but respected. We welcome Colton to join us on CNN today to discuss his views on school safety.
Colton Haab is not just any student. He is one of the captains in the JROTC cadet corps at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and he and a comrade created a barricaded safe space in a classroom and built a wall of kevlar curtains for other kids to hide behind. The kevlar curtains were there because the school had an NRA sponsored air rifle team and had subsidized the purchase of the curtains.
My colleague Joe Cunningham and my longtime friend Erick Erickson are inclined to believe that Haab misunderstood what he was being asked to do.
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. What I do know is this. There is absolutely no logical reason to believe CNN. And there is absolutely no logical reason to doubt Haab.
Let’s review the bidding.
Earlier this week, CNN sent a reporter and a camera crew to the home of some older lady who had used her Facebook page to pimp a Florida Goes Trump rally. We learned from Mueller that this series of rallies was instigated by Russian internet trolls. They conducted an ambush interview and caused this poor woman to be targeted by the never-Trump mob. They didn’t bother to note that they had given extensive airtime to a Russian instigated event themselves, this one was a “Trump is not my president” rally after the election. This is just douchebaggery of the worst sort. It was so bad that even MSNBC thought it was low-rent:
I think it's bad CNN did this and don't approve and wouldn't do it myself.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 21, 2018
And I truly truly pray and hope this woman is not being beseiged online and IRL
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 21, 2018
That is awful and they should not have done it. In fact the video came up in our editorial meeting and I said we are definitely not showing it. Doorknocking a random citizen not accused of any wrongdoing like that is not cool.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 21, 2018
Despicable: CNN hunts down an ordinary citizen at home, accusing her of aiding Russia because she promoted an event on FB that Mueller says Russians organized.
Go ask Michael Moore why he did that. Ask Joy Reid why Russian bots RT her so much. Challenge power. This is bullying https://t.co/pLbRGRuS4I
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 21, 2018
Beyond the ugly power imbalance of CNN using its huge platform to expose this woman, the premise is also gross: unknowingly promoting a Russian page or event is nefarious. Fox just trolled Michael Moore for doing *exactly* that, but at least he's prominent https://t.co/O3w90SAr5n https://t.co/WjXapjVw0n
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 21, 2018
One last thing that is vile about what CNN did. This reporter would *never* show up uninvited at the home of, say, Obama military or intel officials & ambush them with cameras. They'd respectfully invite them into studios & allow them to decline. So easy to confront the powerless https://t.co/XsoIkBvogB
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 21, 2018
Yesterday, CNN”s affirmative action hire, Chris Cuomo, flogged a totally fake and made up story about how easy it was to buy an AR-15. The problem is that the guy who wrote the article was apparently mentally deranged or a pathological liar as he didn’t actually buy an AR-15. And he claimed the people who called him out on it were liars. The story became so widespread that one of the kids at President Trump’s “listening session” last night brought it up.
CNN has not approached this issue from the perspective of a news organization, they have basically decided that they are the lobbying arm of the gun-control fascists.
Finally, CNN claims they don’t script or plant questions in town hall meetings. We know that is a lie. Why did Donna Brazille get canned as a CNN contributor? Because she leaked questions that were going to be asked in a CNN-sponsored Clinton-Sanders town hall meeting to the Clinton campaign.
You may think CNN deserves a benefit of the doubt. That is your privilege. I am not going to try and convince you otherwise. But I am not one of those people. CNN has long ago forfeited any right to that benefit. Nothing would make me happier than to see CNN go out of business and being able to stumble upon Chris Cuomo and Jeff Zucker living in a refrigerator carton under a bridge in Southeast DC.
More to the point, even if I thought, against all experience, that CNN was telling the truth, I’d die and go straight to hell before I’d ever lift a finger to help them out.
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