Topic: NewsBusters
A Jan. 13 NewsBusters post by Mark Finkelstein bashes Democratic Rep. Steven Kagen for having "insulted First Lady Laura Bush, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Karl Rove at a White House function for new members." We have no problem with that; Kagen appears to have that coming (though we suspect Finkelstein would be less disdainful of such "vulgar and unseemly actions" had the target been a Democrat). But then, Finkelstein also plays guilt by association -- because Kagen was once "the Allergy Consultant for CNN," that somehow means CNN is to blame for Kagen's remarks as well.
"You can take the man out of CNN - and stick him in Congress - but you can't take the CNN out of the man," Finkelstein writes, adding, "What kind of person would do something like this? The kind of person that CNN would hire to be a consultant."
Unless Finkelstein can prove that 1) Kagen is still CNN's allergy consultant; 2) Kagen was hired by CNN specifically because he was a Democrat; and 3) Kagen's comments for CNN on the subject of allergies were somehow liberally biased (after all, NewsBusters folks are doing their darndest to prove Stephen Colbert right, and the truth about allergies may indeed have a well-known liberal bias), CNN is irrelevant to this particular issue.
