When an establishment propagandist speaks, a primal feeling builds inside those of us who recognize the lie.
Instead of indulging our anger, however, sometimes it helps if we try to account for the propagandist’s dishonesty.
Tuesday on “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast, host Megyn Kelly unloaded on CNN’s “cold-hearted” and “extremely boring” Kaitlan Collins.
Kelly made those comments in response to Collins’s appearance last week on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Since Kelly criticized Collins’s personality, it might be worth asking if that personality has any possible connection to the CNN host’s willingness to lie on behalf of the establishment.
In a clip posted to the social media platform X, the typically liberal Maher complained that CNN treats commentator Scott Jennings like the network’s token conservative.
“I know what the conservative side of America thinks. And I don’t blame them,” Maher said of CNN’s liberal bias.
If the establishment media fostered a culture of honesty, then Collins would have conceded Maher’s point.
Instead, she tried to pretend that her network plays no favorites.
“I don’t think that you can say that CNN is anything but fair,” she said with an astonishingly straight face.
Collins then hilariously claimed to “speak with authority” on the subject of media fairness.
“I’m from Alabama. I’m from a very red state. I have a very conservative family, a lot of them who are Trump voters. They watch my show every night. And I think they know that they can trust me,” she said.
Collins’s family no doubt watches her show and trusts her personally. But to extrapolate from that fact by suggesting that all supporters of former President Donald Trump can trust Collins and her network to treat them and their candidate fairly amounts to an incredible insult in light of the hostile, anti-Trump behavior so often exhibited by that network’s most prominent hosts and reporters.
In fact, earlier this month, even late-night host Stephen Colbert’s liberal audience laughed out loud when Colbert, during an interview with Collins, suggested that CNN aims for fairness.
Kelly, who has not always supported Trump but does so now, reacted to Collins’s dishonesty.
“I’m sorry, but she’s only a star with leftists,” Kelly said of the CNN host. “And the fact that she has some roots in Alabama does not make her a fair and balanced reporter.”
Kelly then described Collins’s dullness as her “biggest sin.”
“She’s extremely boring with no personality. I have a pro tip for her: smile. Try smiling every once in a while. Try not to be, like, in your delivery, such a cold-hearted b**** all the time because it gives people nothing to bond to. You can be a tough interviewer and also have some warmth,” Kelly added.
As a matter of taste, I personally do not object to Collins’s personality. But I do object to her dishonesty.
In fact, I wonder if those two elements in Collins have a causal relationship.
For instance, the way she immediately called to mind her family in Alabama suggests genuine closeness to them. If I had to guess, I would say that she probably shows plenty of warmth in their company.
On the other hand, as a woman who came of age in early 21st-century America, she probably absorbed plenty of terrible advice about how she should talk and act in a professional media setting so as to earn respect.
In other words, her guarded and humorless comportment could itself amount to a lie. If so, then her inability to acknowledge CNN’s bias would flow naturally from the carefully crafted part of her inauthentic professional persona.
Of course, all of this remains conjecture. But since Kelly blasted Collins’s biases, as well as the CNN host’s “boring” personality, it is worth wondering if those two things are more closely related than they might appear — even to Collins herself.
