When you’re a Democrat, the media always finds ways to make excuses for your hypocrisy. After Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was caught violating her own indoor mask mandate this past weekend, CNN journalists went out of their way to make excuses for the Democrat, and even saved their harshest criticism for her conservative critics instead.
CNN’s New Day spent two reports on the story, Monday. Co-host Brianna Keilar explained Bowser was at an indoor wedding reception and photographed by the Washington Examiner without a mask. Keilar offered tepid criticism of Bowser during the 6:00am EST hour, saying the optics were “horrible” and scolded, “It appears this leader cannot follow her own rules. That makes it harder for any of us to follow the rules and particularly hard for those trying to enforce it.” But for the CNN journalist ,who regularly bashes conservatives with nasty rebukes nearly daily, this was pretty mild stuff.
Keilar ended the report touting Bowser’s defense that she was eating or drinking when the photo was taken: “Yeah. I look at the photo and I see — it seems like it could be during the toast, right? Everyone’s heads are pointed in a certain direction. It seems like maybe they are listening to someone is what it appears to me.”
Co-host John Berman agreed, stating, “Here is the thing, right, she wasn't actually as far as we know violating the new rules, correct?” Keilar agreed, “I think that is fair to say, but I think it might also be is she violating the spirit of it.”
That was just a taste of what was to come. During the second report, the New Day team was much softer on Bowser. Reporter Margaret Talev and Keilar even attacked Bowser’s critics.
Talev whined conservatives were engaging in a “false equivalency” while, she argued, the “reality” was Bowser’s event was safe in terms of COVID spread. So basically the reporter seemed to be saying that Democats’ own rules don’t apply to them because they know better:
Look, I think that particularly public officials who are in Democratic politics, but all public officials in America right now, are going to be seen as examples and they are going to be targets by critics who, you know, want to try to show a false equivalency. The reality is in events where everybody has been -- where people have been vaccinated and where distancing is observed, these events are, you know, less dangerous in terms of spread but you have to be beyond reproach when you're a public official in a public gathering. There may be a lot of efforts at false equivalency or disinformation, but nonetheless, in this case, I think if you are going to be a public official at any event, you have to err on the side of caution and wear a mask…
Afterwards, Keilar joined in snarking at conservatives for calling out the mayor’s hypocrisy: “It might be rich for her to be held to the COVID standards of her Republican critics because there often aren't any.”
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Read the transcript below:
CNN New Day
8/2/21
BRIANNA KEILAR: What about here in Washington, the Mayor, Muriel Bowser just put in place a mask mandate that started early on Saturday morning. Now she's responding to criticism because she was photographed on Saturday evening without a mask. Now, to be clear, this was an outdoor wedding. The nuptials part of it was outside. As can you see in this photo, the reception was indoors. She was at least not wearing a mask in this part of it. What do you know about this?
MARGARET TALEV: Yeah, that's right. Look, I think that particularly public officials who are in democratic politics but all public officials in America right now are going to be seen as examples and they are going to be targets by critics who, you know, want to try to show a false equivalency. The reality is in events where everybody has been -- where people have been vaccinated and where distancing is observed, these events are, you know, less dangerous in terms of spread but you have to be beyond reproach when you're a public official in a public gathering.
There may be a lot of efforts at false equivalency or disinformation, but nonetheless, in this case, I think if you are going to be a public official at any event, you have to err on the side of caution and wear a mask. You will be seen as an example both for your critics, for your supporters, for people who take their cues from you. And, you know, the way you conduct yourself and the scientific guidance you follow has to be beyond reproach.
KEILAR: It might be rich for her to be held to the covid standards of her Republican critics because there often aren't any. In this case, how is she when it comes to her own standards? I should just mention really quick that the mayor’s office says she would have her mask up but she may have been eating or drinking.
