CNN Should Not Have Fired Jeffrey Lord
I despise shameless Trump enthusiasts who routinely make laughable arguments on Trump’s behalf. Jeffrey Lord falls squarely in that category. In a way, I can’t believe I’m about to defend Jeffrey Lord.
But I’m about to defend Jeffrey Lord.
CNN fired Lord today because he sarcastically tweeted “Sieg Heil” at someone he considers to be a fascist.
That’s a bad reason to fire someone.
Here’s how CNN reported the story:
CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words “Sieg Heil!” at a prominent liberal activist.
“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”
To call Lord’s tweet a “Nazi salute” requires one to deliberately blind oneself to the context.
Here’s what really happened. Lord wrote a column about Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters. See if you can discern Lord’s opinion about Carusone and Media Matters from certain subtle clues hidden in the following passages from Lord’s column:
Over there at Media Matters — aka Media Matters Fascists, the anti-free speech bigots who, in typical fascist style, make it their mission to shut down speech they don’t like — MMF’s Angelo Carusone has come to my Twitter feed to respond.
. . . .
I am even happier that he has put his fascist spirit out there in reprintable form.
. . . .
You have been playing this fascist game for years with others — Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly etc etc. If there is a conservative with an audience of any size your fascist instinct is not to debate honestly but to simply silence the opposition. Period.
. . . .
This is America, Angelo. Not Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.
Did you catch that? I went ahead and put the clues in bold in case it was too understated.
I think maybe Lord thinks Carusone is a fascist.
I’m not saying it’s great writing. Lord could try consulting a thesaurus every now and then. But I sense a certain theme to the passage. And that theme is: “Angelo Carusone is a fascist.”
So then, today, the following Twitter exchange occurs:
@GoAngelo Now posted at @amspectator FYI https://t.co/5P2FujFBsL
— Jeff Lord (@realJeffreyLord) August 10, 2017
Your headline has a mistake in it. Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you don't take yourself seriously.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 10, 2017
Sieg Heil!
— Jeff Lord (@realJeffreyLord) August 10, 2017
Lord tweets out his column. Carusone tries to bust Lord’s chops, and Lord responds by saying “Sieg Heil.”
It’s . . . kind of obvious what’s happening there, isn’t it? For CNN to say that’s a “Nazi salute” is to suggest that Lord meant it unironically. But you can’t possibly be familiar with the context and think that.
This is just the latest example of the left calling for someone’s head on a platter by ignoring the context of what they said, and imposing a completely unreasonable meaning on the words.
As much as I despise Lord, I despise this worse.
[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]
If you are on the Right at the MSM, you stand on thin ice. If a leftist had said this, it would ahve been understood as sarcasm and nothing would have been done. This is wrongful termination based on political discrimination. Which may or may not be a thing in Georgia.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/10/2017 @ 8:56 pmThat being said, Lord should have noticed the thin ice and not been jumping up and down so hard.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/10/2017 @ 8:57 pmCNN must be jealous of all the attention Google is getting for being so woke.
Patricia (5fc097) — 8/10/2017 @ 9:01 pmWords are words. People have to be responsible for them, stand behind them, and the anonymity of social media (and the distance between people at different computers) does not help.
But we are almost to a place where the word matters more than the intent. Bumper sticker thinking uber alles.
Whoops. I used German.
You call someone a vile name, you need to be held accountable in some fashion (though not by firing). My solution is to make the person speak in real life to their target (to make it personal). But we have gotten weirdly 1920s Russia about language.
It’s like our language can antirevolutionary or something.
Brrrr.
Simon Jester (bcb31a) — 8/10/2017 @ 9:16 pmTo call Lord’s tweet a “Nazi salute” requires one to deliberately blind oneself to the context.
Context is everything. Jeff Lord ain’t Mel Brooks.
Flashback: German class, London, 1971. Requirement of the day; German only spoken for the hour.
A new student in from the states, Master Bates (yes, every time he was called on snickers arose) was asked by the teacher to read a passage of text. He stood up by his desk, clicked his heels, lifted his right arm and said ‘Sig Heil!’
The class chuckled– for about three seconds.
Mrs. Swaizey, the German teacher married to our Jewish math prof, went wide-eyed, got up from her desk, pulled Bates’ arm down and in a raised voice so loud I can still hear it ringing in my ears over 45 years later, shouted: “NEVER! NEVER do you EVER do that in this classroom again! Do you understand me?!” A stunned Bates was escorted to the headmaster’s office. Suspended three days.
We didn’t learn much German that day but did learn something else that’s stayed with me half a century. A sobering lecture about how there’s a time and place for everything and what may be a glib to some is not so funny to others. Master Bates wasn’t a Mel Brooks either.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/10/2017 @ 9:56 pmpathetically sad
mg (31009b) — 8/10/2017 @ 10:51 pmSame leftists that want to impoverish every non-leftist voice for “hate speech” demand Colin Kaepernick get a NFL job for being so “woke.” Free speech for he, but not for thee.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 8/10/2017 @ 11:52 pmcnn has to do something to fool their viewers so the dmc e-mails leaked from inside not hacked story is spiked.
guccifer (ccecff) — 8/11/2017 @ 12:36 amYes Simon, media matters is more Stalinist but like heidegger student marcuse
narciso (d1f714) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:04 am(I learned that from d’souza) loves some gleishastaung.(sic) it was more doubleplus ungodd thinking they didmt need.
No employee has the right to have his political views offend his employer’s customers. CNN is a business, and if it thinks an employee’s speech or behavior is hurting its business, then it might have no choice but to fire him, as the more business-like alternative to trying to defend him or explain him.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:15 amVerstehen Sie?
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:16 amAs a matter of fact, on this very site, I have seen a campaign to ban a commenter for the reason that he is driving away other commenters. A long-term, persistent, multi-front campaign.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:18 amCNN is not a business, it’s an ongoing tax,loss.
narciso (24d099) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:30 amVery few are familiar with gramsci, who is the continental alynski. Dsouza makes the point that fascism derived from sorel is about state control of the economy.
narciso (24d099) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:35 amThere are tax losses and there are tax losses. Trump’s near $1 billion paper “tax loss” has given him a net profit of as much as $600 million in tax write offs from his cash-in-the-pocket income.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:36 amLike Carlos slims in 20q4, he’ll make for it in volume?
narciso (24d099) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:40 amIf I knew all the tricks, I’d be a billionaire and probably Secretary of Education.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:43 amBack on topic. The use of irony and sarcasm. Here, I like Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/world/europe/putin-trump-embassy-russia.html
That’s the way to do it, Mr. President!
A lot of cognitively underprivileged lefties and humor deficient will go with the NYT’s “Trump Is Defending Putin”, doubling the joke on them.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 5:47 amPatterico, ‘Did you catch that?…in case it was too (much, hard, difficult – to) understand.’
ropelight (072508) — 8/11/2017 @ 6:11 amModern leftist elites adopted ‘Fascist’ as an alternative to smearing conservatives with the ‘Nazi’ label after the unmistakable collectivist origins of ‘National Socialist Workers Party’ were thrown right back in their two faces.
Leftists resent being exposed as the ideological descendants of yesterday’s Nazis. They’re foreclosed from getting
all decked out in those snappy uniforms and shinny jackboots
ropelight (072508) — 8/11/2017 @ 6:42 amnd respond by
CNN is like Google.
Whether the disparity manifesto or this harmless tweet, the left feels no need to even fake the truth anymore. They just project their own hate and intolerance, demand that heads roll and the herd brays in support and glee.
harkin (536957) — 8/11/2017 @ 6:46 amMy #20 above is an inadvertent premature post…but you get the point.
ropelight (072508) — 8/11/2017 @ 6:47 amthis is how we get more bloviating politically incorrect outsiders challenging the palace guard of the liberal kingdom, not less as they think
crazy (11d38b) — 8/11/2017 @ 7:07 amMeanwhile China fired their AI chatbots when they departed from the party line.
crazy (11d38b) — 8/11/2017 @ 7:52 amIs NK an acronym for North Korea? Asking for a friend.
Andy (11847a) — 8/11/2017 @ 8:35 am“understated”
Patterico (c22a91) — 8/11/2017 @ 8:36 amPatterico, my mistake, 1000 pardons.
ropelight (072508) — 8/11/2017 @ 9:02 amSometimes one can take satisfaction from just walking away from — instead of engaging in — all the comedic opportunity inherent in the phrase “inadvertent premature post.” I’mma take a walk now.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/11/2017 @ 9:36 amAs a matter of fact, on this very site, I have seen a campaign to ban a commenter for the reason that he is driving away other commenters. A long-term, persistent, multi-front campaign.
De-lurking as I come here for the contrarian comments and having been in technology hinterlands and such lately…looking at the last several posts, what happened to a few commenters whose names begin with ‘H’? Haiku, Hoagie, Happyfeet? Was there an H-bomb/purge? Some other non-h’s seem to have disappeared as well but not sure who.
CFarleigh (094b61) — 8/11/2017 @ 9:52 amCF, I think that some people quit. Other people cannot help but slide into personal attacks. And in the final analysis, it’s up to Patterico. It’s his site.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/11/2017 @ 9:55 amI’m guessing it’s short for nikolaus
narciso (e0a714) — 8/11/2017 @ 10:02 am@10/11. Sehr gut.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/11/2017 @ 10:06 amDisco duck and dana ward seem perfectly acceptable over here.
narciso (e0a714) — 8/11/2017 @ 10:13 amAndy @ 25 was meant for me? It stands for Nikita Kyoshiro, a Russian-Japanese professional baseball player famous for the triple play Everasu to Tinkerov to Kyoshiro.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2017 @ 10:36 amCNN’s done with Lord’s usefulness, he was only brought in as a Trump explainer after their bet on Ana Navarro as a Jeb! explainer being useful for the long haul fell through. This was back in the day when CNN was plumping for Trump, giving him all the free airtime he could possibly want on the assumption that they could do Trump like they did McCain and Romney, make the worst GOP choice seem like the reasonable choice in the primaries only to “discover” in the general that the guy’s literally Hitler and then turn on him. Lord was supposed to be for entertainment purposes only, a sideshow clown for the clown sideshow, a distraction to Jeb!’s inevitability. Somewhere along the line, the joke stopped being funny, didn’t it CNN? But it was great for ratings and that’s all that matters.
Jerryskids (3308c1) — 8/11/2017 @ 12:14 pmLurkers “unmasked”.
Which one of you is Susan Rice?
Pinandpuller (bc7318) — 8/11/2017 @ 12:27 pmAll these beautiful toys..
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/11/north-korea-threat-pentagon-says-ready-to-fight-tonight-as-trump-shows-bomber-pics.html
Ben burn (a1fde9) — 8/11/2017 @ 12:30 pmIt matches what had been found in other outlets
https://spectator.org/it-was-a-brennan-operation/
narciso (7b41aa) — 8/11/2017 @ 1:07 pmDetails, details…
The blogosphere doesn’t know that.
Media Matters shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this.
If there ever was a case for suing someone for slander this is it. It doesn’t matter that actually all the facts are out there. A straw man argument can be slander – at least if it has these kinds of consequences.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/11/2017 @ 1:23 pmIt was a poor choice of words.
https://mobile.twitter.com/cencio4/status/896051560240697345
narciso (7b41aa) — 8/11/2017 @ 1:51 pmBeldar, don’t go all Nelly on me now. You got something moderately urgent on your mind, then out with it.
ropelight (072508) — 8/11/2017 @ 7:59 pmThey should have fired him for suggesting that Ariana Grande was partially responsible for the deaths at the Manchester concert. I would have cheered if one of her male relatives had given him a solid punch to the nose for that. But yeah, it was stupid to fire him for that–particularly at a moment when the left is throwing around “Nazi” to label anyone to the right of Lenin.
M Scott Eiland (b16b32) — 8/11/2017 @ 9:45 pmhappyfeet was given a week off for saying the following about Beldar:
I made the decision 2017/08/07 at 9:03 pm. Privileges are restored 2017/08/14 at 9:03 pm. Or as soon thereafter as I get around to it.
Haiku could not abide any criticism of Donald Trump and became a persistently negative influence who did nothing but emit passive aggressive whiny comments about me. I did not ban him but I told him I was tired of it. He left on his own. I miss the old Haiku. The new one was a drag.
I did not realize Hoagie had left but I see a flounce on July 27, here. I don’t understand the comment and did not see it at the time. Here is what he wrote:
Dustin had not commented in the thread so I’m not sure what he was on about. I see a flap about an apology in a previous thread, but once again I don’t know what it’s about.
That’s a shame. I like Hoagie. I may email him.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:03 pmI like Hoagie and wish him good health and would welcome his return. We agreed sometimes and we disagreed agreeably sometimes. If you email him, tell him that, if you think of it. I don’t know what to say about Col. H, except that we certainly disagreed more, with less productive interchange, as he became more supportive of Trump and critical of any who dared flag in supporting Trump. But he wasn’t on the list of commenters whose remarks I automatically skip through by any means.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:20 pmWell we know who is welcome apparently, I warned you what he would who he has hurt among my friends
narciso (d1f714) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:24 pmI can seldom understand the overall “take home” lessons of your posts, narciso, but do get many of your quite arcane references.
Simon Jester (8aea69) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:32 pmEnglish, please.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:38 pmThe communists took put the social democrats per stalins orders, because they thought
narciso (d1f714) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:40 pmThey were the direct obstacle, Jan valtin was the witness to this. Gramsci thought culture was the gateway to political domination
10.No employee has the right to have his political views offend his employer’s customers. CNN is a business, and if it thinks an employee’s speech or behavior is hurting its business, then it might have no choice but to fire him, as the more business-like alternative to trying to defend him or explain him.
If memory serves, similarly, recall that Gilbert Gotfried, who was the voice of the Aflac duck in TV ad spots, cracked wise on social media w/some off-color joke about Japanese flood victims and the Aflac insurance firm fired him for it– turned out a large number of their policy holders are in Japan.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:41 pm49
How freakish is it for someone to be fired for saying what everyone else is thinking?
Ben burn (4f912e) — 8/12/2017 @ 5:49 pmIf anything, my comment was a confirmation of the fact that Rev. Hoagie was NOT anti-sem. I when I said “guilty as charged”, it was in reference to me because of my inference that Jacky Rosen as a Senator would be a carbon copy of Boxer and Feinstein from the next state over. I had realized my comment may very well be interpreted as antisemitic.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 8/12/2017 @ 6:12 pmLosing a lot of good ones and the people filling up the blog instead are cheap facsimiles.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 8/12/2017 @ 6:22 pmI emailed Hoagie. I think he’s coming back. That makes me happy.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/12/2017 @ 11:42 pm