There’s nothing wrong with a little humor. But when a joke of a governorship and a joke of a news program meet, it really is no laughing matter.
This perhaps was certain critics’ conclusion after CNN host Chris Cuomo, interviewing his brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo, recently about New York’s pandemic response, began joking about the size of the latter’s nose. The muscle-bound Chris even had comedy-show-worthy props at the ready, such as a fake cotton swab as large as the dumbbells he lifts during his TV vanity displays.
Of course, it’s unrealistic thinking a brother would ask truly relevant questions, such as why the governor killed thousands of nursing home residents by seeding their facilities with Wuhan coronavirus-positive patients. But the larger issue is that the Cuomo Comedy Show is merely symbolic of the incestuous relationship existing between the Democrats and the entire mainstream media — brothers in ideological arms all.
The Daily Mail summarizes the Cuomo story:
• CNN host Chris Cuomo teased his brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday’s Cuomo Prime Time episode, poking fun at the size of his nose
• Chris joked that nurses needed a much bigger nasal swab to test the governor for coronavirus and brought out a baseball-bat sized swab prop
• Conservative figures like Meghan McCain and Janice Dean slammed the Cuomos for their joking act on the show
• ‘Most of my friends are jobless, petrified and dealing w depression…This is HILARIOUS guys,’ McCain tweeted
• New York has been on lockdown for over two months with over 356,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 23,000 deaths
Below is video of the Cuomos’ exchange.
In fairness, there really is nothing wrong with some humor (though Chris took it a bit far, beating the joke to death somewhat), and conservatives would react differently if two Republicans indulged such banter.
That said, leftists not only exhibit the same double standard, but for political gain will actually portray conservatives’ jokes as serious statements (e.g., Trump’s humorous “call” for the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails). More ridiculous still, left-wing, fiction-loving “fact-checker” Snopes has even fact-checked satirical site the Babylon Bee.
Speaking of facts and fiction, given Andrew’s flexible relationship with Truth, it’s a bit surprising his nose isn’t three feet long and doesn’t require a cannon cleaning rod for swabbing. Chris, though, of course, won’t care about that, as the only time he seriously challenges his brother is when they’re arguing about who’s mommy’s favorite (short video below).
Again, however, Chris’s show is hardly an outlier. Historian Victor Davis Hanson said recently that we no longer have a media, that the mainstream press has melded with the political Left — and studies bear this out.
For example, in his 2011 book Left Turn, UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose quotes “a well-known poll in which Washington correspondents declared that they vote Democratic 93 percent to 7 percent,” writes U.S. News. Moreover, a 2018 study found that even among financial journalists — considered the most right-leaning in the mainstream media — liberals outnumber conservatives 13 to 1.
This disparity has its effect, too. As Groseclose also wrote, “Media bias aids Democratic candidates by about 8 to 10 percentage points in a typical election. I find, for instance, that if media bias didn’t exist, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama 56 percent to 42 percent [in 2008], instead of losing 53-46.”
In truth, Groseclose likely understates the case, profoundly. But imagine how different things would be if we had a real media. Governor Cuomo, for example, would be asked the following questions:
• While people disagreed early on about many COVID-19 realities, everyone knew the elderly were most vulnerable. Given this, why did you force nursing home to accept virus-positive patients, a move causing thousands of deaths?
• How do you respond to the Queens nursing home executive who says you have blood on your hands?
• Since studies increasingly show that lockdowns don’t save lives — and that they may actually cost lives — why do you perpetuate your state’s shut-down? Aren’t you destroying the economy for nothing?
• Why did you lock down rural areas largely unaffected by the virus the same way you locked down disease hot spot New York City? Isn’t this one-size-fits-all policy akin to insisting that a hinterland town have as many traffic lights per block as the Big Apple?
• Why did you shut down churches, in apparent violation of religious freedom, while keeping abortion clinics open? Is killing babies really an “essential” service?
• Why were Muslims allowed to worship in a Syracuse, New York, mosque while Christians are pilloried for wanting to do the same? What do you say to the critic who opined that “the state isn’t concerned about churches spreading the virus as much as the Gospel”?
Why, with tough treatment like that, Cuomo might think his last name was Trump. Instead, the media trumps the Truth, which is why GOP governors who looked at the science and opened their states have low approval ratings while lockdown demagogues such as Cuomo have high ones.
So media misinformation is just a bit as with a computer: garbage in, garbage out (and garbage in office). Of course, though, if the people tuned the mainstream media out, they and their lies would soon be in the garbage. So, just perhaps, people get the media they deserve.
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
