Well, that’s convenient:
Three days after being ousted from the Donald Trump campaign, Corey Lewandowski is becoming a political commentator for CNN. [Via CNN Money]
CNN acknowledges that Lewandowski’s hiring “is bound to be controversial” — you know, given his tendency to beat up reporters (including one of CNN’s) — but suggests that he “brings the same thing some of CNN’s other paid commentators bring: first-hand experience running a presidential campaign.” And, indeed, why shouldn’t Lewandowski get a cushy gig on cable news? It’s not like there are any reasons to think he might have a problem telling the truth.
The problem here isn’t hiring ex-political operatives to do commentary. That’s standard practice (though most are not hired within 72 hours of leaving campaign HQ). The problem is CNN’s prima facie ridiculous proposition that Corey Lewandowski is, in the wake of his termination, a good-faith independent operator. That was obvious nonsense even on Monday, when in his first post-firing interview he basically argued that things were going so gosh-darn well on the Trump campaign, they didn’t really even need him anymore. CNN has Trump surrogates on regularly (e.g., Jeffrey Lord). Did it really need a salaried one?
The fact is, this isn’t about truth in reporting; it’s about ratings (read: $$). What will Trump’s former right-hand man have to say about the operation from which he was nixed? Tune in to find out!
Television media, perhaps more than any other, has behaved reprehensibly over the past year, its m.o. summed up with admirable frankness by Les Moonves: “[The Trump phenomenon] may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” But while media executives are to blame, so are the millions of viewers whose appetites have made unseemly decisions profitable ones.