This is ...

It is very difficult to watch CNN these days.  They had Bill De Blasio on the line and let him off the hook in regard to the Eric Garner case.  He successfully passed the blame to the Department of Justice for his own inaction in regard to the agonizing five-year wait it took to fire David Pantaleo for strangling Garner to death over some contraband cigarettes.  This is the morbid equivalent of Trump saying he can't release his tax returns because they are being audited by the IRS. 

De Blasio likes to present himself as a man who got things done in New York.  One of his central campaign themes was police reform, following numerous allegations of police brutality throughout the boroughs.  He could have pressed the NYPD to fire Pantaleo immediately, but didn't want to risk further alienating himself from the men in blue.  Instead, he left the matter to the DOJ, much to the chagrin of the Garners as they awaited some sort of justice to avail itself.  During that time, Pantaleo collected over 100 grand a year on desk duty.  Sad that you read this in the CNN commentaries, but it doesn't make its way to the television screen.

Anyway, Mayor Bill will soon be roadkill on Campaign Trail 2020.  His bid was doomed from the start and this long-deferred case certainly won't help him gain any traction.

This brings us to the CNN segment that immediately followed this spurious interview -- Biden's seemingly insurmountable lead in the Democratic polls.  He appears to have boosted his lead in the CNN national poll after redeeming himself in the second debate.  He had been blindsided by Kamala Harris in the first debate, when she called him out on busing.  He's crept back up to 29 per cent, opening a double-digit lead over his nearest challengers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at 15 and 14 per cent respectively.  Kamala slipped to 5 percent, a distant fourth, after a poor second debate.

Biden's strength rests largely on having consolidated the moderate base of the Democratic party.  What CNN's analyst David Chalian failed to point out is that those trailing Biden are all fighting over the progressive base of the party and together combine for no less than 48 per cent of vote.  No other moderate candidate polls more than 2 per cent.   This means that Biden's seemingly insurmountable lead is an illusion.  If he was such a commanding presence among Democrats, he should be garnering 40 to 45 per cent of the surveyed voters at this point.  All he has managed to secure is a substantial segment.

Unfortunately, CNN chooses to simply crunch the numbers as if all the candidates are equal in terms of representation.   As the progressive candidates begin to wane, the more liberal Democratic voters will consolidate behind one candidate, and Joe's commanding lead will shrivel up.  It also doesn't help that no less than four Democratic challengers poll ahead of Trump in the latest Fox Poll (starting on page 7).  This means Biden's contention that he is the most winnable candidate is also an illusion, as they all beat Trump by no less than 6 points.  No wonder the notorious Donnie T was so upset.  Fox only surveyed the president against four candidates.

CNN has fallen into the same trap as in 2016, obsessing over preliminary numbers and not taking candidates to task for their demonstrably false statements and false equivalences.  Worse, its so-called expert panels are largely made up of journalists all bucking for more air time.  The other night I watched Bianca Nobilo interview Jake Tapper, a fellow CNN journalist, in regard to Brexit.  He seemed to preface every statement with "I don't know," which makes you wonder why he was on the show other than to plug his program, State of the Union, appearing later that evening.  Why not invite someone who actually knows something about Brexit and the impact it will have on the world economy?

This is why it is so easy for Trump to use CNN as a whipping post.  Its often faulty, misleading exchanges suggest that its personnel don't thoroughly research the subject matter, which makes you question anything these so-called journalists have to say.  Amusingly enough, they don't even call themselves journalists anymore, but rather "current personalities."  There is an astonishing lack of actual experts on the news programs, with the notable exceptions of Fareed Zakaria GPS and  Amanpour, who interview a broad range of guests on their shows.  The round table discussions are invariably current personalities and paid political contributors, like Jason Miller and Rick Santorum, to represent the conservative side of whatever argument they have.

Every once in awhile you get a wonderful moment like the time Christiane Amanpour called out Kellyanne Conway on her program, but these moments are far and few between.  Most of the time the hosts let their guests say pretty much whatever they want with little or no push back.

A major part of the problem is Jeff Zucker, who has made CNN into a pale imitation of its former self.  Instead of hard-hitting journalists, Zucker fills the network with personalities who have risen up largely through city papers and the internet media, Jake Tapper being a prime example.   This is a guy whose breakthrough moment was reporting on a date he had with Monica Lewinsky in the Washington City Paper.  The title alone is enough to make you cringe.  To be fair, ABC hired him first, where he rose to Senior White House Correspondent, if you can imagine that.  After failing to land a more high profile gig at ABC, Zucker offered Jake a prime time slot at CNN.  Certainly not a pedigree what would endear him to Edward R. Murrow.

You can say this for almost all of the CNN personalities.  Very few of them have traditional journalist resumes.  The worst are the conservative political commentators they bring in to defend Trump and GOP policy.  None more so than Rick Santorum, who was unable to retain his congressional seat and later got drummed out of the presidential primaries in 2012.  Since then he has doubled as Trump apologist and CNN commentator, earning a cool million dollars per year.

Zucker also likes pretty women.  More and more can now be seen on CNN, ranging from the lovely Bianca Nobilo to the stunning Zain Asher.  Several of CNN's women personalities have even made Ranker, not that they would be proud of this notorious distinction.

So, what is CNN exactly?  Can we still call it a news network?  News seems to be rather low priority.  Much of its 24-hour news cycle is given over to discussions of one sort or another, unless a breaking story happens to gain traction like the Hong Kong protests.  CNN seems to live for the moment, not too concerned in providing a backstory to a current major event, but rather following an event until it breaks, then leaving it up to their panels of personalities to newsplain it to us, as if we are unable to interpret events ourselves.  Little wonder, since we are given so little to go on.

Gone are any penetrating documentaries, searing interviews and meaty discussions, which CNN was once known for.  That's pretty much been given over to PBS, which no one watches anyway.  Even Zakaria and Amanpour seem like pale imitations of their former selves, with Christiane having to split her segment with other personalities, as apparently it wasn't enough just to have her do the interviews.

Whatever you can glean that is worthwhile from CNN is from its website.  Here you find more in-depth coverage of news stories and sterner commentaries.  I suppose the news network still has some value, but sadly its television programming has been completely given over to dull personalities and their banal opinions.  They take no side on an issue but rather agree to disagree, as Kate Bolduan so often says on her show, State of America.  Boring!