Evidently, the lack of self-awareness at CNN has reached a critical stage, leading the cable news pioneer to embarrass itself while trying to put down President Trump. No doubt, the “fake news” label applied to CNN by Trump really stings. But by adopting a tone of Olympian infallibility as a reporter of facts, while by implication looking down on Trump, the 30-second promotional video CNN tweeted out yesterday enters the realm of self-satire:

“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana.” #FactsFirst pic.twitter.com/LbmRKiGJe9

— CNN (@CNN) October 23, 2017

Condescension as a communications strategy is rarely useful, and when dealing with a mass audience, always a mistake. It is simply too easy to discredit this pose as truth-tellers by the track record of the network. David Harsanyi, for example, takes us down memory lane to ten times CNN told us apples were bananas.  A sample:

We’re not talking about Candy Crowley arguing with Mitt Romney during a presidential debate, and misleading millions of voters by mangling the facts. We’re not even talking about transparently partisan reporters like Jim Sciutto or Jim Acosta. We’re talking about CNN political analysts like Julian Zelizer, who claimed this summer that President Trump never made an Article 5 commitment to our NATO allies a month after Trump did. Rather than correcting what may have been an oversight (if we give him the benefit of the doubt), Zelizer rationalized his definitive assertion by alleging that “POTUS has sent mixed messages and there is reason to question his commitment.”

Trump said: “I am committing the United States to Article 5.” Even if you don’t trust the president, a banana is not an apple.

We’re talking about CNN host Chris Cuomo, who, in addition to his hopeless bias, regularly offers factually impaired assertions on every media platform available to him. During the presidential race, Cuomo arguedthat while it was “illegal” for citizens to look at WikiLeaks emails, the media was afforded special protection with illegally obtained documents. “It’s different for the media,” Cuomo explained, “So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.”

You might also remember that after an anti-Islamist was shot in Texas a few years ago, Cuomo, who has a law degree, did a bit of victim-blaming by arguing that “Hate speech is excluded from protection” under the First Amendment. Instead of admitting that his aversion to speech critical of Islam had led him to say something untrue, Cuomo attempted to walk it back by offering examples that had absolutely nothing to do with his initial comment.

When people are laughing at you, it is impossible to be taken seriously. Trump Derangement Syndrome has struck CNN and is taking a terrible toll.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky