CNN's Don Lemon is no stranger to controversy.  In 2015, 30,000 people signed a petition asking CNN to fire him for remarks about an incident in South Carolina where a police officer used excessive force in removing a black student from a classroom.  His on air-stunts are legendary.

NY Daily News:

He drew fire last June while covering Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol.

On CNN Lemon held up a confederate flag and then a sign with the n-word in big block letters and asked: "Does this offend you?"

Last November, as Ferguson, MO erupted into anger, bullets and flames Lemon ham-handedly drew tear gas into his own gas mask, whined for water and a device to contact his producers, and then made a culturally insensitive comment about protesters smoking pot.

A few days earlier Lemon was roasted for insinuating that one of Bill Cosby's alleged sexual assault victims should have bitten the comic instead of performing oral sex.

Lemon is a putz and a joke of a reporter.  But on Tuesday evening, Lemon topped himself when he referred to Antifa, saying, "No organization is perfect."

And Mussolini made the trains run on time.

"It says it right in the name: Antifa.  Anti-fascism, which is what they were there (in Charlottesville) fighting," Lemon said on the Tuesday broadcast of his CNN show. 

"Listen, no organization's perfect.  There was some violence.  No one condones violence, but there were different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there.  One, racists, fascists, the other group, fighting racist fascists.  There is a distinction there," he said.

In 1932, there was a presidential election in Germany.  More than a million brown-shirted storm troopers took to the streets to "battle communists" and "protect democracy," they said.  One can imagine Lemon rationalizing the behavior of these "protectors of democracy" for the same reason he rationalized Antifa violence.

Did you get what this dolt is saying?  Because "anti-fascist" is in its name, Antifa, the group can pretty much beat up whomever it wants, destroy as much property as it wishes.  Because "no organization is perfect."

Holy mother.

The left immediately praised Lemon for his "rational" defense of violence.

Splinter:

Seems pretty mild and rational to me! But because Fox News and conservative politicians have made "antifa" shorthand for disorder and the destruction of property – the two things they hate the most, and definitely hate more than creeping fascism – bad people on the internet got mad.

This was also happening on the same night that legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin highlighted the racialized element behind the anti-Antifa fervor, saying on CNN's The Situation Room:

Let's be clear also about what's going on here. The theme here is, "I'm Donald Trump and I'll protect you from the scary black people." ... This is just part of the same story of LeBron James and Don Lemon and Maxine Waters and the NFL players and the UCLA basketball players.  This is about black versus white.  This is about Donald Trump's appeal to racism and it just happens all the time.  And we never say it.  We don't say it enough for what it is, but that's what's going on here.

Again, this is mostly correct and certainly well argued!  But it's still a bit spicy for a mainstream outlet like CNN, so it'll probably take about 24 hours for someone to apologize.

Even if Trump blows the racism dog whistle – and he does – is that any reason for anyone to beat up people whether they are fascists or not?  Is that a reason to destroy property?  Besides, Antifa's loose definition of who is a "fascist" includes just about anyone it disagrees with politically.  That Lemon doesn't point out that basic fact of Antifa's existence – its misidentification of political opponents as "fascists" – proves that he, too, is unable to grasp opposition as legitimate. 

I would say this would ordinarily disqualify any journalist from holding a job, but this is CNN we're talking about.  He'll probably get a promotion and a raise.