Return of disgraced Toobin shows CNN has no standards

NEW YORKER FIRES JEFFREY TOOBIN WEEKS AFTER EXPOSING HIMSELF ON ZOOM CALL

Toobin’s return to the network, despite his transgressions, is all the more flummoxing when one considers that the network recently has dropped several contributors, all conservative, for lesser offenses.

CNN’s Alisyn Camerota had the dishonor of emceeing Toobin’s undeserved comeback Thursday, interviewing the disgraced sex pest at length about his monthslong hiatus from TV.

“In October,” said the host, “you were on a Zoom call with your colleagues from the New Yorker magazine. Everyone took a break for several minutes, during which time you were caught masturbating on camera. You were subsequently fired from that job, after 27 years of working there. And you, since then, have been on leave from CNN. Do I have all that right?”

“You got it all right, sad to say,” replied Toobin, who also stands accused of sexually propositioning a “well-known media figure.”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Camerota asked.

“Well, obviously,” her guest responded, “I wasn’t thinking very well or very much. And it was something that was inexplicable to me. I think one point — I wouldn’t exactly say in my defense, because nothing is really in my defense — I didn’t think I was on the call. I didn’t think other people could see me.”

“You thought that you had turned off your camera?” asked Camerota.

“Correct,” Toobin said. “I thought that I had turned off the Zoom call. Now, that’s not a defense. This was deeply moronic and indefensible. But that is part of the story. I have spent the seven subsequent months, miserable months in my life, I can certainly confess, trying to be a better person.”

Now is as good a time as any to remind you all that CNN delegated the task of welcoming back the workplace onanist to not just a female anchor, but one who was allegedly sexually harassed when she worked at Fox News. Oh, also, in the context of Toobin returning to CNN, it’s worth noting that Camerota lost her spot recently anchoring the morning show to colleague Brianna Keilar.

In other words, after taking her off New Day earlier this year and putting her in the afternoon block, CNN gave Camerota the unpleasant task of interviewing Toobin, at length and in excruciating detail, about the time he did what he did in front of his coworkers. If there is a more humiliating moment in recent cable news history, I’m struggling to think of it.

As to the issue of Toobin reemerging at the network as its go-to legal analyst, one common criticism this week is that there is apparently nothing a CNN staffer can do that will result in their termination from the network.

But this isn’t true! CNN fires and bans media personalities all the time. It’s just that, in true CNN fashion, it approaches disciplinary matters in such a way as to maximize its own shame and embarrassment.

Recall that CNN banned sports journalist and conservative commentator Clay Travis in 2017 for saying he believes “in only two things completely: the First Amendment and boobs.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was similarly dropped as a contributor after he said at a private event in Las Vegas that “there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.” He even apologized for the remark, but CNN was unmoved. It cut Santorum anyway, explaining that none of the anchors wanted to host him.

In contrast, Toobin, who once made a mistress of his coworker’s daughter, pressured her to abort their love child, and then had to be taken to court to pay child support, was brought back in part because the network’s on-air talent had been eager to work with him again, according to CNN.

And not only is Toobin employed by the network, but it even brought him back to talk about his masturbating incident specifically, a discussion that ended up being objectively far more offensive than anything Travis and Santorum said.

Then, there’s former CNN contributor Jeffery Lord, who was dropped from the network in 2017 after he mockingly tweeted “Sieg Heil!” at the president and CEO of Media Matters. Lord’s remark came amid a bigger argument about the group’s efforts to pressure advertisers to boycott Fox News’s Sean Hannity, a campaign Lord characterized at the time as fascistic.

“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”

The awful thing about the Lord example is that, like all of CNN’s disciplinary decisions, it’s humiliatingly inconsistent. CNN draws the line at Lord mockingly throwing out the Nazi salute at a person he claims acts like a fascist, but CNN has no problem with any of its on-air talent behaving similarly.

There were no repercussions, for example, in 2014 after host Anderson Cooper compared CIA operatives to the Nazis and even the Khmer Rouge following the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report detailing the agency’s treatment of suspected terrorists.

There were no repercussions in January after host Don Lemon said, “If you voted for Trump, you voted for the person who the Klan supported. You voted for the person who Nazis support.”

There were also no repercussions, save a mealy-mouthed mea culpa, after host Christiane Amanpour compared the Trump presidency to the informal launch of a genocide that killed an estimated 11 million Jews.

But Lord, Santorum, and Travis apparently crossed a line.

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CNN could follow a very simple formula that says anyone who embarrasses the network has to go. But CNN doesn’t follow this rubric because it would be too easy and it would help it maintain its dignity.

Perhaps Zucker is not actually committed to destroying CNN’s credibility. But if he were, how would he be acting differently?