Surprise! CNN and MSNBC Three-Hour Morning Shows Offer Combined Two Minutes of Coverage to Their Former Live-In Permanent Guest, Michael "Punch-Up" Avenatti

We are real news, Mr. President.

This is one hundred and five hours of a woman-championing apple.

This is sixty seven seconds of a woman-punching apple.

See the difference?

CNN's New Day and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, two programs with a combined six hours of air time, on Thursday managed a total of 67 seconds on the felony abuse arrest charges against Michael Avenatti. This is despite their previous fascination with the porn lawyer and Democratic antagonist to President Trump.

CNN's New Day offered a scant 27 seconds to the news. Co-host John Berman briefly explained, "Attorney Michael Avenatti strongly denies any wrongdoing after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence." Though Berman noted that "there are a lot of open questions" and "we need to get more information on the story," clearly the show's hosts weren't that interested.

MSNBC's Morning Joe only did slightly better, managing 44 seconds in a Willie Geist news brief...

Again, these shows are a combined six hours long. From March 17 through August 12, Morning Joe interviewed Avenatti 7 times. During the same period, CNN's New Day talked to him 13 times. Yet suddenly, news of the Democratic lawyer's arrest is uninteresting.

This is like doing a 12 hour Ken Burns biopic about John Wilkes Booth's acting career and then just ending it in an Animal House-type freeze frame, "Wilkes later had a short career as a ballistic political critic."

Here's what I think: I think the media, which pretends to be Totally Against Conspiracy Theories, is holding out hope that Michael "Slugger" Avenatti's conspiracy theory that a Bitch Rightwing Journalist Set Me Up is real:

Jacob Wohl is some nobody-ever-heard-of guy that suddenly figures prominently in leftwingers' conspiracy theories. Apparently he had something to do with that Mueller-sexual-harassment vapornews story? Maybe?

I have no idea. No one even knows who this guy is besides leftist conspiracy theorists and The Weekly Standard's "fact-check" guy.

Fortunately, we had AllahPundit, who pretends to be super-duper anti-conspiracy-theory if that conspiracy theory emanates from the right, give Avenatti's leftwing conspiracy theory a full and fair airing on "conservative" website HotAir, under the headline,

Was Avenatti set up?

Nice headline, hero!

In fairness, he does point out the answer is probably "No" (wouldn't want to be too dismissive of a leftwing conspiracy theory, thus the hedging; leftwing conspiracy theories remain a better class of conspiracy theory than those offered by the grubby, lumpenproletariat right), and notes that a domestic violence charge can only stem from an assault upon someone who's a wife, dating partner, etc. Hence, this Jacob Wohl Immanuel Goldstein subversive would have had to have persuaded/bribed a woman who could prove to police that she was one of Avenatti's sex partners to join him in the "set up."

Dat headline doh, huh?

Claims the right makes can be laughed away, but it's important to treat CNN Pals' no-evidence conspiracy theories as substantial, credible allegations worthy of being seriously entertained.

Oh, AllahPundit also joined in with his Leftwing Twitter Palz in treating this Trump statement...

"If you buy a box of cereal -- you have a voter ID," Trump continued. "They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.”

... as a serious statement that cereal purchases require voter ID, rather than an amusing way to say "For pretty much every transaction you make in life, you have to present ID -- so stop pretending it's a major hardship to get it."

Everyone's said "if you buy a six pack of beer" or "if you buy a pack of cigarettes" you have to show ID, but Trump extended this hyperbolically to cereal purchases, and, well, Allah joins in with his very good Twitter Palz in saying "BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!"

Again, this was the line that all the leftwingers were pushing, so it shouldn't be any surprise that the "conservative" blogger joined in.

I wonder what Pierre Omidyar thinks. Oh, don't tell me. I'm sure the Twitter Kidz will be relaying it momentarily.

But seriously -- we do have to take the innuendo of a Conspiracy So Vast to frame Michael Avenatti as a real thing that must be taken quite seriously.

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:30 PM

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