CNN’s Jim Acosta revealed on-air Tuesday evening that he did not enjoy President Trump’s State of the Union address.
It was the least surprising news development that day since the sun set in the west.
More seriously, it is baffling that CNN wasted valuable airtime on its White House correspondent’s predictably negative reaction to the president’s speech when, like most major newsrooms, it maintains a roster of supposed GOP experts for that exact sort of thing.
Indeed, situations such as Trump’s State of the Union address are precisely why token Republicans who despise the Republican Party will always have a place in national media. These individuals, many of whom have little, if any, relevant or recent experience working in Republican politics, provide audiences with at least the spectacle of GOP-on-GOP violence when there is nothing newsworthy or even entertaining to be mined from the reliably left-leaning reactions of news commentators and reporters.
Steve Schmidt, for example, is a favorite of MSNBC, appearing regularly on Morning Joe to offer his perspective as a former Republican strategist. Schmidt has not been involved in a successful GOP campaign since 2006. He is also the guy who convinced the late Sen. John McCain to choose former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate in the 2008 presidential election.
Schmidt is a fixture at MSNBC not because of his supposed expertise as a Republican “insider,” but because of the entertainment value that comes with the appearance of friendly fire. Schmidt attacks the GOP as a former member of the Republican Party. What fun! What excitement!
Similarly, the Washington Post has Jennifer Rubin, whom it hired in 2010 as a “conservative” commentator, despite her relative lack of experience commentating on conservatism. She spent the entire 2012 election cycle, from primaries through Election Day, as a strident and outspoken partisan for Mitt Romney, almost to the point of mania. She savaged his GOP primary opponents, often unfairly and always without hesitation. The day Romney lost, however, Rubin flipped instantly into recrimination mode, seeking to lay blame at everyone else’s feet for the flawed candidate for whom she had been shilling for more than a year. It was really something to see.
Rubin has a history of extreme makeovers, and she has experienced a new one in the Trump era. She not only opposes the president, but she has also renounced every conservative position she ever held. Yet, despite enlisting as a berserker in the anti-Trump “resistance,” Rubin is still promoted in her frequent television appearances as an authority on Republican politics.
There is also former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett, whose role as an anti-Republican media commentator dates back to the days of President George W. Bush. Bartlett, you may recall, is the supposed Republican professional who said on MSNBC in 2017 that the GOP’s tax reform bill was “akin to rape.”
Unfortunately for Schmidt, Rubin, Bartlett, and others who have perfected the art of playing the token Republican who detests the Republican Party, their dominance in this niche field is being challenged by a growing number of GOP “insiders” who are looking to cash in on the post-2016 demand for anti-Republican commentary from Republican “experts.”
There is Republican strategist Ana Navarro-Cardenas, who “strategized on behalf of no campaign that anyone could recall,” as Politico’s Tim Alberta neatly put it. There is Richard Painter, an obscure, former low-level Bush-era White House attorney who has rebranded himself as a top “ex-Bush ethics lawyer,” willing to opine at any time on matters for which he seems to be totally unqualified to comment. There is also Republican strategist John Weaver, who appears on cable television from time to time to assist Democrats and their allies in the news media in pushing anti-GOP narratives, including the conspiracy theory that alleges Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp stole the 2018 gubernatorial election from Stacey Abrams.
An entire style of political commentary has cropped up around Republican “insiders” whose sole selling point is that they will parrot what the liberal media already say about the Republican Party. The market for such personalities is positively booming now that Trump is president. It makes sense, too. There is little news or entertainment value in an opposition activist who says he opposes the Republican administration — basically, someone like Acosta, whose view is as predictable as the dawn. But get someone with “GOP” somewhere in his title to say it, and you now have some primo, ratings-friendly drama.
The news is a business, and that business sells entertainment. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. (“If it bleeds, it leads” is a saying in journalism for a reason). A headline that reads, “Ex-Bush ethics lawyer on Trump Jr: ‘This borders on treason,’” holds more news and entertainment value than a headline that says simply, “Democrat attacks Republican.”
