It's been quite a while since anyone thought CNN was an impartial news organization rather than a partisan advocate for liberal causes. That's fine; RedState, after all, is a partisan site featuring Republican, conservative, and libertarian thought. The primary difference is, of course, that RedState is openly partisan and we state so up front, where CNN is still trying to pass itself off as a straight news organization.

Now, CNN does have its Op-Ed writers as well, as most news organizations do, and that's perfectly appropriate. But sometimes, these CNN opinionators really wander afield. On Thursday, CNN analyst Stephen Collinson penned a piece that's worth noting in how much it just plain got wrong.

So, let's analyze his analysis.

First:

The 45th president’s comeback will only be fully realized if he becomes the second one-term president to win a return to the White House in November. But his rebound to this point may be even more unlikely than his unexpected win in the 2016 election. His return to the top of the GOP ticket means it is now clear that Trump was not simply an aberration, but is becoming a historic political force who has utterly transformed his party and could do the same for the nation, for better or worse, if he comes back to White House on January 20, 2025.    

Now, this part Mr. Collinson has correct. Trump, I would maintain, is a symptom rather than a cause, though; he has channeled a train of thought that has been running through the minds of ordinary American workers, business owners, and the middle class for some years now. But Collinson missed a big part of the reason for the Rise of Trump; the Democrats have shoved their party's Overton window to the left so far as to make Leon Trotsky look like a moderate.

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Collinson states:

The ex-president, 78, will accept the Republican nomination Thursday, advancing one of the most stunning comebacks in political history after his bid to steal the 2020 election, an unprecedented criminal conviction and an assassination attempt.

His "bid to steal the 2020 election" included his admonition to his followers to "peacefully make their voices heard" and a demand to ensure that the electoral college votes were properly and legally tallied; he lost that fight, and Joe Biden was certified. As for the criminal conviction, it was a sham, and Mr. Collinson should know better. If he likes, he could, for instance, discuss the matter with one of the nation's foremost legal scholars, Alan Dershowitz, a liberal Democrat.

He continues:

Republicans are lionizing a nominee who escaped a would-be assassin’s bullet and rose, bloodied, to raise his fist with a vow to “fight.” Biden, by comparison, retreated from the campaign trail Wednesday to his Delaware home with a case of Covid-19. 

Trump just choreographed one of the most remarkable shows of dominance in any political party of the modern age, requiring his vanquished primary foes to pledge fealty in front of a primetime television audience at the convention on Tuesday.

OK, let's take a look at that choice of words. To "lionize" (a transitive verb) means to "treat as an object of great interest or importance." Collinson, in that first paragraph, implies that Republicans are doing this deliberately; in fact, Trump is and will be a person of great interest and importance. He has not been "lionized by Republicans"; he has been lionized by his fame and fortune long before he decided to run for president. The assassination attempt on the 13th only added to the stature the man already enjoyed.

As for Trump's receiving the enthusiastic support of his primary opponents: Has Stephen Collinson never watched a major political party's national convention before? Because this is how it's done. There is a primary, the usual back-and-forth takes place, and the candidates sometimes go at each other hammer and tongs. Then, a winner emerges, and the party coalesces around that winner. Kamala Harris, during the 2020 primary season, accused Joe Biden of making "hurtful remarks" on the topic of race — in essence, implying that Biden is a racist — and yet he chose her as his running mate. That's literally how it works, every time, for both parties. This isn't a "pledge of fealty," it's SOP.

And finally:

The GOP is painting a picture of a nation that is broke, beset by crime and an invasion by undocumented migrants, and economic blight disrespected in the world. The picture is highly subjective. 

Mr. Collinson, this picture isn't subjective at all. It's objective, and troublingly so. The nation is facing $35 trillion in debt. That's with a "TR" followed by an "illion." The nation is broke; our national debt is probably beyond the point of no return, and future generations will rightly damn us for that. Crime rates in our major urban areas are rising. Millions of illegal invaders have poured into the country; when they are caught, they are set free, into the U.S., with a court date months or years in the future that none of them will appear for; we have little or no idea who most of them are, why they are here, where they are going or what they intend to do. And I would bet a substantial amount of money that other national leaders like Tsar Vladimir the First and Chairman Xi can't discuss Joe Biden without giggling at America's foolishness for electing him.

What Mr. Collinson has penned here isn't an analysis. It's advocacy. There's nothing wrong with advocacy; I'm not impartial myself, and I make no bones about it. I'm an advocate, not an impartial reporter. 

But for the sake of honesty and accuracy, call it what it is.