The national media spent the greater part of the last year fretting over President Trump and the “Access Hollywood” tape. Yet this whole time the devil himself was at their very elbow!
For the second time in two weeks, a celebrity journalist had his career effectively ended over allegations of inappropriate behavior.
Longtime NBC “Today” anchor Matt Lauer apologized this week after his network fired him to get ahead of other news outlets investigating claims he sexually assaulted various women at work.
It was Charlie Rose of CBS’ “This Morning” the week before.
Faced with accusations that, among other things, Rose had paraded his wrinkly nude body in front of various unsuspecting women, PBS, CBS, and Bloomberg all ended their business relationships with the alleged 75-year-old exhibitionist.
For Lauer, the details are also bad. One woman reportedly accused him of giving her a sex toy and telling her how he wanted to use it (which may go down as the ultimate example of “mansplaining”).
On Nov. 20, the same day that Rose was fired from CBS, accusations surfaced that New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush liked to liquor up younger female colleagues and force himself on them.
A month before that, the prolific political journalist Mark Halperin, who had deals with Showtime, NBC, and a book publisher, apologized for more sexual harassment claims, including that he rubbed his erection against women at work when he was a senior-level staffer at ABC.
Former New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier, ousted NPR news chief David Sweeney, and David Corn of the liberal Mother Jones — all accused of sexual misconduct in the workplace and all revered by their colleagues in the national press.
This has gone on for years, though voters were told by the same media that they should be deeply worried about President Trump because a video from 2005 included audio of him talking dirty about women on a hot mic.
At least Trump was getting laughs from Billy Bush when he said that as a celebrity, “you can do anything” with women.
Nobody is laughing about the women who say Halperin pressed his crotch against their bodies, or the one who told the New York Times that Lauer called her to his office so that he could flash her his penis.
Reporters and commentators can now come off the moral high horse, preferably without molesting anyone on the way down.
And they can consider ending efforts to lump Trump in with the real harassers.
On Nov. 21, after allegations of impropriety sunk Charlie Rose, Glenn Thrush, et. al., Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin asked, “Why not Donald Trump?”
CNN commentator Ana Navarro wrote a piece Thursday recapping all the sexual abuse that has taken place in the news business, incredulous that Trump has suffered no similar consequences, “even though we heard him, his very own unmistakable voice on video, boasting of sexual assault” (he didn’t). She noted that several women during the 2016 campaign accused him of misconduct.
For all journalists and talking heads comparing Trump to any other sexual harasser, past or present, there is a minor difference: They admitted it and Trump didn’t!
Every single one of the media names mentioned above, except the NPR editor, publicly apologized for their behavior, coming clean as workplace freaks.
But Trump has consistently denied every accusation. An audio recording has him privately (he thought) bragging about his sexual exploits, the way any dumb high school male desperately wants his guy friends to believe he’s not a virgin.
When the tape surfaced in late 2016, Trump apologized for the way he spoke.
When accusations against journalists bubbled up over this entire year, they apologized for what they physically did.
That is the difference that makes all the difference.
The “Access Hollywood” tape dropped and the media, a people of prayer who abide no such wickedness, were offended by the obscenity.
Meanwhile, their most high-profile names have been exposing themselves to innocent colleagues and fondling their underlings.
When the media wanted everyone to believe Trump was a sexual harasser, they made themselves so pure.
Yet, here they are. Look upon each other.
