The Media Research Center’s years of Jim Acosta derangement unsurprisingly continued into this year as well, starting with a Jan. 6 post complaining that Acosta brought up the Capitol riot:
CNN went all out for its election certification coverage Monday in marking four years since the deadly ugly riot at the U.S. Capitol, but they at least had the wherewithal to have a conservative on-set (or at least most of the time), including CNN conservative commentator Brad Todd for CNN This Morning and CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta.
It was on the latter show that Todd dished it back to Acosta and liberal commentator Maria Cardona when it came to anti-Trump lawfare, the deeply partisan nature of the Nancy Pelosi-picked January 6 committee, and voters rejecting the left’s mandate they make January 6 a focus of what they did at the ballot box.
Thankfully, Todd wasn’t alone on CNN writ large as CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings had reality checks for CNN News Central and later during the joint session of Congress.
A few minutes after Acosta’s sanctimonious opening about Trump “regaining power and reigniting fears…four years to the day after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, smash[ed] windows and doors, brutally attack[ed] police officers and shock[ed] the nation,” he turned to Cardona by saying all Americans should “take a moment to remember the bravery of the police officers” whose “helped safeguard American democracy after Trump’s lies.”
Acosta even cited real-life anti-Trump Loony Tune Steven Collinson, who whined Trump winning allowed him to “send a message down through the ages that a president who refuses to accept the results of a fair and free election” can carry out acts of violence as they see fit.
Once Cardona got her chance to issue standard Democratic talking points, Todd got his chance after Acosta lectured: “Brad, is it time for Donald Trump to apologize for what took place four years ago?”
“I wouldn’t expect Donald Trump would apologize. I think – nor do I expect Democrats to apologize for trying to undo his presidency by all legal and extralegal means after that,”Todd unflinchingly replied.
Acosta was disgusted, shouting “oh, come on, Brad. Come on!”
Todd continued to press his case with a sober view about January 6 and then how voters were poised to punish Trump again at the ballot box until Democrats chose to hurl their slew of criminal indictments.
Houck concluded by huffing; ‘Acosta, ever the out-of-touch liberal partisan, closed by hurling one last kick of the dirt in the faces of over 77 million Americans who voted for Trump: ‘And the knee-bending continues. That’s certainly the case.'” Houck didn’t explain voters shouldn’t be held to account for supporting a convicted feon, adjudicated rapist and adulterer.
Houck returned to engage in juvenile name-calling in a Jan. 16 post, smearing Acosta as a “pompous prick”:
With his favorite President set to return to office on Monday (and the source of a lifetime of memories for him), serial carnival barker and real-life cartoon character Jim Acosta closed his Thursday morning hour of CNN Newsroom by declaring the media “democracy” itself in fawning over President Biden’s farewell address lamenting the lack of trust in the news media.
In other words, the pompous prick who sadly thrived off of attention and faux victimhood wanted a return to that sugar-high feeling.
[…]Acosta only briefly brought it up earlier in the show when asking moderate Republican strategist Doug Heye to weigh in on his “misinformation” lecture and didn’t tip his hand. But, with less than a mintue left and no chyron, Acosta said he “want[ed] to take a moment to talk about something President Biden said during his farewell address.”
Acosta said Biden “warned the free press is crumbling in this country” and voiced his agreement by saying the “would add, that’s only if we, the people, let that happen.”
He then fell into an all-too-predictable level of impenetrable sanctimony about the news media:
Is it more or less impenetrable than the right-wing sanctimony Houck serves up? But it was also lazy as well; Houck used the same “pompous prick” insult against former CNN commentator John Avlon when he ran for Congress last year.
Houck spent a Jan. 23 post cheering the prospect of Acosta getting moved to an overnight shift as part of a shakeup at CNN:
As first reported last year by Puck’s Dylan Byers and then confirmed last week in detail by former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, CNN pulled the trigger Thursday on massive layoffs — to the tune of roughly 200 people — at the once proud network-turned-Resistance-hive-turned-ratings gadfly.
CNN boss Mark Thompson announced the six-percent workforce cut would be accompanied by a massive expansion on its digital side (so, CNN.com) and huge changes to its TV schedule starting in March. They include Wolf Blitzer taking The Situation Room to mid-mornings Eastern time and team with Pamela Brown.
Unfortunately for carnival barker Jim Acosta, his role at the network is in serious limbo and could reportedly end up at midnight Eastern (if he doesn’t quit outright).
Darcy reported last week that Thompson had floated the notion of having Acosta keep his job, but be banished to midnight to 2:00 a.m. Eastern, which one could argue is the TV equivalent of Point Nemo. The New York Times made no mention of that possible midnight assignment and instead “[t]he network is in talks with Mr. Acosta about another role.”
The same day, Houck fawned over a Republican congressman being a jerk toward Acosta:
In clips that went viral on social media, Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN) threw down Wednesday morning with CNN’s dead man walking Jim Acosta over January 6 and President Trump’s commutations and pardons for all those charged in the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Near the end of the squabble, Burchett ripped CNN as being crushed in the ratings by the likes of Cartoon Network and Spongebob Squarepants reruns.
The high point came at the end when Acosta first grossly conjured up some fear porn that those released from prison are going to commit violent crimes. Burchett clapped back that, as part of the probe, he had constituents whom the FBI visited “and harassed them” in a “political thing from the start” even though “[i]t was a bad day in America.”
Acosta came back by accusing Republicans of refusing to truly “back the blue” while Burchett said Trump is “no more” responsible for any future actions of those pardoned “than Joe Biden should take personal responsibility for the 14 million people — for Laken Riley losing her life because he didn’t have enough guts to enforce the law and back Americans.”
Of course, there was no reason not to assume that some rioters would return to a life of crime, given the violent criminal records of some of them — indeed, some have had run-ins with law enforcement after their release.