Wow, former MSNBC anchor and show host David Shuster blasted Jim Acosta off the map this week over his press briefing outburst and various other dramas, and it’s about time someone did it.
Sure, the right has been bashing Acosta – he is a smug, self-aggrandizing, melodramatic narcissist, after all – but it’s nice to see someone in the mainstream press with enough integrity to say “QUIT BEING A D-BAG”, finally.
And before MAGA objections about how Shuster is a liberal, let me say “well duh.” That’s what makes this so biting, you guys. Come on.
Hey Jim @acosta, the job of a true journalist is not to be sad or happy by what happens in a press briefing room. It is to ask questions and report facts about what was said/not said. Your feelings, antics, + self promotion are hurting journalism, not helping it. Enough. https://t.co/J1sO8enSBz
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 3, 2018
BURN!! But not the last one.
One can report aggressively and call out Trump on Cohen/Russia, as we have, without making the story about US. True journalism is not about self promotion. It's about reporting the facts. Period. https://t.co/Epnq4gGBb1
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 3, 2018
BURN AGAIN! But wait there’s more.
So you think the others who stayed in the briefing room were being un-american? Many journalists are sick of being lied to and insulted. But they have the guts and integrity to stay there, report the facts, + not become part of the story. @acosta gave #trump a victory today. https://t.co/OB5XY6yFgJ
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 3, 2018
FATALITY.
There is no greater insult in these circles than that you gave Trump a victory, so that was a killing blow.
It’s also helpful that Shuster is exactly right about Acosta.
Acosta covets every #Resistance warrior’s praise, every anti-Trumper’s favor. He puts on an emotion-driven display, fancying himself some kind of folk hero speaking truth to power, and wallows in the tongue-bathing of the TDS masses on Twitter when his display is complete. He doesn’t go to the briefing to ask questions, he goes to put on one act plays and monologues in which he has cast himself the star, and then go his fans on the left and in the press so they can tell him he is brave and earnest and eloquent and brave.
The worst. And now burned by one of his own.
Schadenfreude.