Upon observing the lovefest, one did not know whether to laugh or simply dismiss it as liberal reporters' drama to incredulously suggest they had survived a near-death experience.
On Oct. 25, CNN's Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon jointly condemned White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders during a segment on the packages laden with non-exploding explosive devices sent to various Democratic high-profile voices, including CNN. Because a package was sent to the network, listening to the Cuomo-Lemon anti-Donald Trump tag team diatribe, one would have thought they too had personally experienced a brush with death.
The two felt Sanders and Trump, while condemning the terrorist attempt, had not done enough to call for unity. Cuomo praised CNN Chief Executive Officer Jeff Zucker for blaming Trump's rhetoric for encouraging the terrorist. Cuomo met Sanders' subsequent criticism of Zucker's comment with an anti-White House rant saying, "She's the press secretary. She says, the president said that no act of violence like this should be tolerated, and then you call him out instead of calling for unity. How dare you do that? You know, look, all of you guys have to make your own lot. I talk to you guys in the White House about this on a regular basis, what you ignore, what you empower and you are part of the same message. If you're going to call out Jeff Zucker for what he said when your president was up at a rally today and he didn't say any of the things he needed to say, when you wrote the words for him, that's on you too."
Then, the two near-death-experience-survivor wannabes went into their lovefest. Lemon began thanking everyone for still being alive, naming all within earshot, "I'm glad you're here. I'm glad Jeff Zucker is here. I'm glad Jeff said what he said. I'm glad Bob the security guy's here. I'm glad Jackie is here. I'm glad Brenda is here. I'm so happy you guys are here because this is life and death. All the folks who are around here, Kevin, all of you guys, I'm so glad you're here and alive today because we could have been mourning you guys."
Cuomo responded to Lemon with, "I love you, brother. Have a good night and a good show." Then, as if suffering from PTSD, Cuomo embraced and kissed Lemon. Any military veteran, watching such dribble, would not want either of these two snowflakes on the same side of the battlefield with them.
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Four days later, the two fiction-oriented journalistic showmen were at it again when Lemon appeared on "Cuomo Primetime." Out of nowhere, Lemon suggested, "We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right. We have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no white guy ban. So what do we do about that?"
As Cuomo made no effort to challenge Lemon's statement, it looked like an exchange between "Dumb and Dumber." Lemon suggested the biggest threat is from "white men" (roughly 120,000,000 males based on today's U.S. population of 329,000,000), "most of them radicalized to the right." Thus, he is saying more than 60,000,000 are right-leaning radicals – an outrageous claim. Any reasonable commentator should have challenged the statement, yet Lemon's "bro" Cuomo failed to do so.
If Lemon was trying to suggest that most actual terrorist attacks in the U.S. have been conducted by white males, that certainly was not what he said. His effort two days later seemed to aim at providing numbers supporting the latter, but even those numbers were dubious as he failed to include lives lost in the 9/11 attack.
Among those immediately objecting to this "white-man-biggest-threat" assertion was the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives (also known as Project 21), which, fed up with Lemon's repeated racist remarks, demanded Zucker rein him in. Project 21 says this was just the most recent of numerous racist comments Lemon has made, referencing his calling the president's supporters "people who will lie, steal and cheat, lie to their mother." Apparently an equal opportunity racist, Lemon simply laughed with glee during one of his shows when pro-Trump activist Kanye West was mocked as "a token negro" by two guests.
On Nov. 8, Cuomo did not need Lemon's assistance to make a fool of himself. Referencing the Nov. 7 Southern California bar shooting leaving 12 dead, Cuomo ludicrously stated that when people offer their thoughts and prayers, they are actually mocking victims' loved ones. He sarcastically queried, "You think leaving it to God is the answer?"
Cuomo, whose closest encounter with death was probably the non-explosive explosive sent to CNN, never endangering him, ignores an important observation about those who find themselves in harm's way whether in combat or a mass shooting. Those facing death, religious or not, often reach out to the God Cuomo so stupidly mocks. In combat, it is said there are no atheists in a foxhole. There were undoubtedly victims in this mass shooting who felt similarly, their prayers answered by surviving. And even among those who fell, many with their last breath of life may well have been making their peace with God. Believers need make the same demand of Cuomo that he made of Sanders above: "How dare you do that?"
Polls show Americans are not enamored of the media: 64 percent believing it is responsible for dividing the country as 92 percent of network coverage is anti-Trump. As CNN refuses to fairly report the news, allowing the likes of Cuomo and Lemon to attack political or religious thinkers not falling in line with their own extremist views, it is no wonder the network's ratings have fallen so low that a kids-oriented network, Nickelodeon, airing programs like "SpongeBob Squarepants," is more popular.
Cuomo and Lemon might well consider hosting their shows donning SpongeBob Squarepants costumes to win over some of the Nickelodeon viewers. Who knows? It might improve their credibility.