CNN’s Jeffrey Lord deserved to go, but not for that tweet

Let me start by saying I can’t stand Jeffrey Lord: He’s a dishonest partisan who would defend Donald Trump if he decided to blow up Canada for extra parking spaces.

And anyone who’s read my many articles on this site knows that I’m a huge liberal and certainly no fan of Lord’s work at the “American Spectator.” In fact, I’m actually a fan of Media Matters.

But CNN was wrong for how they dismissed Lord. And hypocritical.

{mosads}I went back and checked out Lord’s tweets, including the now infamous “Sieg Heil!” tweet he sent to Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters. When read in context, it becomes abundantly clear that Lord was accusing Carusone and Media Matters of being Nazis/Fascists and that the “Sieg Heil” comment was done for the purpose of mockery. In another tweet, just six minutes later, he accused the left of having “millions of racists.”

In fact, in the original article that Lord and Carusone were arguing about, Lord starts off by referring to Carusone’s group as “the fascist Media Matters.” While the accusation itself is plainly unfounded, hyperbolic, and shows a poor understanding of history, it’s also clear that Lord was not himself endorsing the Nazis.

Jeffrey Lord tweets “Sieg Heil!” at watchdog president after calling him a fascist https://t.co/mEmmiACmMG pic.twitter.com/LogtXQ4vYO

— The Hill (@thehill) August 10, 2017

Yet within hours CNN had fired Lord, who’s been with the network since early 2016. How the network, which prides itself on being careful and accurate, could’ve fairly evaluated Lord’s comment in so short a time is beyond me. It reeks of a knee-jerk reaction.

Moreover, CNN is, frankly, completely hypocritical. CNN stuck with Lord even when he had made clearly disingenuous or just plain ridiculous comments. He’s defended Trump’s Muslim ban, compared Obama to Mao Zedong, and has consistently dissembled on live TV. Even Anderson Cooper recently told him, “If (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend him.” He added, “I don’t know what he would do that you would not defend him.”

It was funny because it’s true. But it also begs the question: If CNN (and Cooper) know that Lord’s opinion is so tainted and unreliable, why do they seek it out? In other words, if they know that Lord is simply a shill for Trump, how does he in any way offer anything of value to the viewer? Just like Jason Miller (who worked for Trump and may soon do so again) and Kayleigh McEnany (who now hosts Trump’s “real news” segment from Trump Tower) and Corey Lewandowski (who was hired by CNN even though he was contractually prohibited from bad-mouthing Trump in any way), Lord was never anything but a foil, and a dishonest one at that, continually making false arguments and poor analogies.

Conservatives defend Jeffrey Lord after CNN firing: His Nazi salute was satire https://t.co/j6aWjv06Dp pic.twitter.com/Z623Hs40Gp

— The Hill (@thehill) August 11, 2017

And so I find myself very conflicted right now. I’ve wanted CNN to can Lord for a long time because of the false information he promotes, but the way they actually did it is pretty shameful. They took something Lord said out of context and used it as a reason to say goodbye. Worse still, their actions may turn Lord into a right-wing hero.

That’s bad enough, but the truly worst thing about this is that CNN, having fired a man on false pretenses, won’t conduct any introspection — they’ll still allow Trump foils to come on and spread disinformation with impunity, and never permit other guests to call them out for what they are: unabashed, self-serving liars.

CNN’s recent coverage of the military threat posed by North Korea has been excellent. Why? Because they’ve stuck to interviewing experts and delivering facts. They should take the same approach to covering political issues instead of allowing guests to spread disinformation on the basis that such lies constitute their “views.”

Jeffrey Lord should not have been fired for his tweet — it was clearly taken out of context. But Lord also should’ve never been hired in the first place. And CNN should think about how they do things, especially if they want to keep claiming that they’re “the most trusted name in news.”

Ross Rosenfeld is an educator political pundit who has written for Newsday, the New York Daily News, Charles Scribner’s, MacMillan, Newsweek.com and Primedia.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.