First the news, such as it is. According to Politico, Sarah Isgur, who served as lead spokeswoman for the Justice Department under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is joining CNN as a political editor. Her job, which starts next month, will be coordinating political coverage for the 2020 campaign. For some reason, she will not cover the Department of Justice, despite the suitability for that post suggested by her previous job experience.
The article’s lede, which emphasizes that Donald Trump has derided CNN as a leading purveyor of “fake news,” is presumably intended as vindication of the network. But a far more visceral reaction to the hire was tweeted out by Obama National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, who could not conceal his pique:
This is absolutely insane @CNNPolitics. Why on earth would you hire a right-wing hack to oversee political coverage in 2020? You just gave every Democrat in the country a reason to doubt your objectivity. https://t.co/bjRKPqAIm6
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) February 19, 2019
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The tweet says more about Vietor’s own partisan bias than it does about CNN.
Of especial interest is the line in his tweet about giving “every Democrat in the country a reason to doubt your objectivity,” which suggests that Vietor believes CNN’s (and presumably every media outlet’s) mission is to serve Democrats, and that “objectivity” in news reporting is synonymous with slanting coverage to the left.
In a lighthearted tweet of his own, the Washington Free Beacon’s David Rutz points out that Vietor was apparently unconcerned when one-time Clinton communications director George Stephanopoulos accepted a job as chief political correspondent at ABC News.
Vietor, who is founder of a company appropriately named Crooked Media, was 27 when he was hired as Obama’s NSC spokesman. He is best remembered for his appearance on Fox News’s “Special Report” where he was grilled by host Bret Baier concerning his role in the Benghazi cover-up. When he was challenged over his repeated answers of “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember,” his youth kicked in, prompting him to utter, “Dude, that was two years ago!” Watch:
