With so many possible selections, it's hard to come up with a worst-of list to rank the most pathetic attempts by CNN's Jim Acosta to pose as an oh-so-tough reporter. His Friday stunt, though, was in the upper echelon for its laughable false bravado.
At President Donald Trump's event celebrating six months since the Republican Congress's passage of corporate and individual tax cuts in late December, Acosta thought it was appropriate (h/t Twitchy) to shout out a question about the President's treatment of the press — and to shout it out again, and again:
Transcript:
JIM ACOSTA (cups hands around mouth, as audience is clapping): Mr. President, will you stop calling us the enemy of the people, sir?
(man turns around and gives Acosta the finger-over-mouth "shush" gesture)
Will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir?
(same man turns around and repeats "shush" gesture)
Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir?
Acosta took special umbrage to the man in the video who silently suggested that shouting out questions the CNN reporter knew the President wouldn't answer wasn't a polite thing to do in the circumstances, and vented in a tweet:
Acosta's tough-guy schtick is well past what should have been its expiration date.
Acosta's tweet, as seen above, responded to another reporter's observation that journalists' rude shout-out tactic, like so many other actions in which press members have engaged during the Trump era, had a boomerang effect.
Evergreen reminders:
- In 2012, when then-Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro shouted out a question at Barack Obama which was actually related to the then-President's presentation on immigration matters, the rest of the press proceeded to treat Munro as a "heckler" and a pariah.
- Some reporters who shout at Republican presidents or interrupt ceremonial events to ask nagging questions have been treated as royalty, e.g., Sam Donaldson during the Reagan era. That is certainly not how most Americans saw Donaldson's actions when they took place.
- The press's habit of shouting out questions at Reagan, even at times when his helicopter was making so much noise that he couldn't possibly hear them (and they could barely hear themselves), became problematic enough that the Associated Press's Christopher Connell felt he had to publish a story defending the indefensible practice. Someone he quoted gave an equally indefensible go-to excuse: "All the regular channels of access to the president have been cut off." Boo-hoo.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
