DAVID MARCUS: CNN's airing of ‘Good Night And Good Luck" proves it has learned nothing

Fox News

08-06-2025

It takes a lot for me to object to a television program that includes gratuitous smoking and jazz, but CNN found the exception Saturday night with its breathtakingly sanctimonious live telecast of Broadway's "Good Night and Good Luck." This was as shameless as it gets.
Many are familiar with the 2005 hit movie that the play, starring George Clooney, is based on, in which brave 1950s CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow takes on the red scare baiting of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. CNN's message was clear, they are the heroic journalists and President Donald Trump is McCarthy.
As if this metaphor wasn't already incessantly slamming us in the head like a giant inflatable hammer for two hours, CNN's resident media guru Brian Stelter wrote an entire column comparing McCarthyism to the current lawsuit against CBS News' "60 Minutes," whose extremely friendly (read: dishonest) edit of an interview with Kamala Harris could have tilted the 2024 election, according to Trump.
"The real-life drama recounted in the play took place at CBS, the same network that is currently being targeted by President Donald Trump," wrote Stelter. "That's one of the reasons why the play's dialogue feels ripped from recent headlines."
CNN's media expert basically left out the whole part about "60 Minutes" editing a Kamala Harris interview to make her incoherent answers seem somewhat sensical, because for Stalter and CNN fighting against Trump is more important than journalistic integrity every day of the week.
Even if Stelter, who once championed the absurd Biden White House lie that videos of decrepit Joe Biden were "cheap-fakes," won't say it, "60 Minutes" disgraced itself and lied to the American people.
But there was Scott Pelley, the "60 Minutes" anchor on CNN, after the show, with an air of gravity and profound conceit, insisting that, "if you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed."
Do these people listen to themselves? Do they own any mirrors?
CNN and most of the liberal legacy media spent the entirety of the first Trump presidential term fostering a fake Russian collusion story. They then spent the four years under Biden ignoring the fact that he was demonstrably unfit. Where on earth do these people get off lecturing us about journalism?
Then, of course, there is the star of the show, George Clooney himself. This is the same George Clooney who lied about the president of the United States being a zombie until it became politically expedient to be honest.
Just like CNN lied about Russiagate, just like "60 Minutes" lied about editing Harris, Clooney lied about Biden's fitness. Because to these people, any lie is justifiable as long as it hurts Donald Trump. I really wish that was hyperbole, but it's not.
Clooney has no contrition over his lies, and neither does CNN, Jake Tapper, Brian Stelter, or Scott Pelley. They don't think they did anything wrong. If they did, they wouldn't be dressing themselves up as heirs to the courageous journalism of Murrow.
After the play, there was an assemblage of journalists, speaking before journalism students about the importance of what they had just witnessed. Of course, the closest thing CNN had to a conservative was Brett Stephens, a nice guy, but widely acknowledged as the Washington Generals of conservative political punditry.
Needless to say, they congratulated themselves on being so enlightened and brave and speaking truth to power, while the handful of people watching threw up a little in their own mouths.
You almost have to admire the audacity of CNN. Just weeks after bombshell books and reporting finally confirmed the obvious about Biden's incapacity and the liberal media's lies, the network aired a play in which it dressed itself up as brave heroes of the newsroom. It's amazing.
It's also informative. This bizarre effort by CNN to paint itself in historical glory is proof positive that the network has learned nothing from its lies over the past eight years, and there is no reason to believe it will start being honest anytime soon.
This reckoning by the liberal press regarding their failure to tell the truth about Biden is over. In fact, it never really began, and if they had somehow dragged bag-a-bones Joe over the finish line and gotten him elected, we'd have likely never known a thing about it.
There's an old saying, when people tell you who they are, believe them. On Saturday night, CNN showed America exactly what they are: a shameless, unrepentant, and unreliable source for news.
And that's the way it is.