Can we all just forget about Russia now? Because the biggest scandal of the summer in the media’s eyes seems to be the White House press briefing that CNN’s Jim Acosta turned into an impromptu poetry reading-slash-debate with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller.
It was last Wednesday when social media decided Miller was a Nazi, a white supremacist, and/or Hannibal Lecter for informing Acosta that “The New Colossus,” the poem mounted inside the State of Liberty’s pedestal in 1903, does not constitute official U.S. immigration policy. Miller also accused Acosta of showing his “cosmopolitan bias” by assuming that requiring immigrants to speak English would limit the privilege to residents of Australia and Great Britain.
That “cosmopolitan bias” crack must have resonated throughout the White House press corps, as journalists immediately set about doing what it is they do. No, they didn’t correct Acosta on his absurd claim about who speaks English; instead, they investigated Miller, with some insisting “cosmopolitan” was an anti-Semitic dog whistle — “an unnerving term … key to an attempt by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to purge the culture of dissident voices.”
The ugly history of Stephen Miller’s 'cosmopolitan' epithet https://t.co/gPCNN6loOF pic.twitter.com/oB4Z7l4V9u
— POLITICO (@politico) August 4, 2017
Again, that was last Wednesday. Now it’s the following Monday, and members of the blue-check brigade still have their attention set on discrediting Miller. How dare he be so rude to a reporter just because he decided to grandstand during a press briefing and act as the opposition party. And look who’s calling others cosmopolitan:
Stephen Miller, who blasted media "cosmopolitans," lives in $1M home https://t.co/FYOtKhTNpL pic.twitter.com/KajsLh2tC9
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 7, 2017
Stephen Miller blasted a reporter as ‘cosmopolitan.’ But he lives in a $1 million CityCenter condo. https://t.co/BhexsLm8eh
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 7, 2017
Stephen Miller blasted a reporter as 'cosmopolitan.' But he lives in a $1 million CityCenter condo. https://t.co/MjdHMdlXZy
— Emily Heil (@emilyaheil) August 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/AlexHortonTX/status/894674976804155395
https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/894661687504240640
https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/894660263194087425
And …?
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/894658884681560065
You may have missed the point. Try and work on your comprehension skills and resubmit your work with some context. D-
— Steven Lehner (@midlehn) August 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/mediacritik/status/894695496953995265
So he lives in the cheapest condo in DC?
— Whiskey Jack (@Wisakijak) August 7, 2017
The same kind of clueless gotcha "#journalism" that assumed his wealth disqualified #Trump from speaking for the working class. #MSM https://t.co/Ecg0tq1b5z
— (((Alan Tonelson))) (@AlanTonelson) August 7, 2017
So stupid. "Cosmopolitan ≠ "Rich." Miller's dad is well off and helped his son buy a nice condo. God bless.https://t.co/wWoJsFtyaD
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) August 7, 2017
This is a dumb story. "Cosmopolitan" and "wealthy" are not synonymous. https://t.co/MCZwLqt2Lm
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) August 7, 2017
You might have thought Acosta would have been content to have tweeted the entire text of “The New Colossus” as proof that he was right all along, but having seen the Washington Post’s “scoop” on Miller’s condo, he decided to turn it into a measuring contest of square-footage:
When I was 28, I was a local reporter in Dallas renting a studio apartment. But we did have a nice pool. https://t.co/ABARmPdCMd
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 7, 2017
And where will he be living when he finally manages to parlay his grandstanding at press briefings into an anchor gig at CNN? Let us know, OK journalists?
* * *
Related:
Andrea Mitchell scolds Stephen Miller for being rude to Cuban-American Jim Acosta https://t.co/GI3FtC9oy1
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 2, 2017
Join the conversation as a VIP Member