CNN has for the last year or so brought more and more of these Tea Party and right-wing ideologues onboard as contributors (Erick Erickson, Dana Loesch, Will Cain, are a few of the others). And for the most part they've behaved themselves on-air enough not to cause major controversies or headaches, even while their outside activities are among the most bitterly partisan around, or in the case of Loesch, just plain noxious. And we remember the blatant pandering with the so-called CNN/Tea Party Express Debate last September. So when CNN began to have Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express on regularly it was probably only a matter of time before her true colors would show themselves.
This morning Soledad O'Brien called Kremer out for a series of tweets she made recently. Kremer was unapologetic, but she didn't look too happy about it.
Huge difference between
@mittromney &@barackobama is tht Mitt luvs America! We need a president that luvs this country!#RNC2012#GOP2012— Amy Kremer (@AmyKremer) August 31, 2012
This deliberate strategy of trying to paint President Obama as "the other" should have ended with its failure in 2008, yet it persists in the constant refrain of dog-whistles we hear from these people: 'Marxist', 'Foreign', 'Muslim', with the sickness of Birtherism and the like. Republicans don't seem to care if they're seen as bigots anymore either, and in fact many have publicly embraced it.
Perhaps CNN has, inadvertently, done a public service by giving these bigots a more mainstream platform than they'd enjoy on Fox News but by continuing to pollute the public discourse we are all the poorer for it.
