Prime time lies and a lemon in the morning
I thought about my good friend Paul when I read about Don Lemon’s sexist comments on CNN’s struggling morning show where the on-air chemistry has brewed a cup of hemlock tea to get the day started for its meager audience.
I’ve travelled all around the world with Paul, and we’ve met every conceivable type of guide from fishing to skydiving to boat captains to dogsled drivers. Paul dreams of writing a book about the dumbest question each guide he has ever met has been asked. Some of the questions are so stunning, and always good for incredible laughter and producing shocking disbelief.
For instance, a woman from New York asked a charter boat captain if she could swim under a small island to get to the other side. Then there was the hipster who believed that his Montana float trip took place on a lazy river, moving in a circle, because the same truck that dropped him off was present at the end.
I wondered if Don Lemon had ever met a fishing guide. I’d love to know the question he would ask.
Nikki Haley mentioned President Biden’s age, which will be 82 in 2024, and slyly made a dig at Trump, who will be 78, and appears monstrously unfit and addled compared to President Biden. Don Lemon said he didn’t like that, and asserted that a woman’s prime is in her “20s, 30s…and maybe 40s.” There are many things to be said about this and Lemon’s views about women, but they trifle compared to Lemon’s achievements in shallowness and vapidity. He is the perfectly-matched morning show host for the age of Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sean Spicer and a freak show cast of grifters, weirdos and extremist apostles. Lemon divided America from his prime time platform for years on a show that debased and abased Americans on a regular basis. This episode is a perfect distillation of Lemon’s arrogance and contempt:
The CNN morning experiment has come to its end, even if Lemon survives for a few more days or weeks. His thoughtlessness revealed his callousness and objectification of half the population and a majority of his audience — many trapped on airplanes forced to watch on the small screens. He demonstrated his untrustworthiness to them by showing his disregard. If ever there was a dumber utterance made on CNN about something having nothing to do with Trump, it should be put forward, otherwise, Lemon is incontestably the gold medalist for dumb by leaps and bounds. One thing is for sure: the show must go on, but it will be proceeding without the plastic anchor doll who proved he is out of touch, arrogant and deeply impressed with himself.
I joked with friends a few weeks back that there are approximately 800 million English speakers as a first language in the world. It is difficult to think of any three individuals who would have worse chemistry than what CNN has brought together in the morning, which is definitely the wrong time of day to see Don Lemon — even if you are a Don Lemon fan. He’s not a morning guy, and his presence has hobbled his two able co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Kaitlin Collins. The show is a disaster that seems deeply disconnected from America and what is happening in the country.
The cable news morning show formats are old, stale and out of touch with the lives of the American people. Perhaps consideration should be given towards moving the show west towards the sight of the East Palestine train derailment that is poisoning an Ohio town in an unfolding disaster that once again is invisible for the most part. What would coverage of this disaster have looked like if it took place on the east or west coasts? It would be different, for sure. It would be the leading story on the news every minute of every hour of every day. Where is the much-celebrated Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the midst of this disaster?
Certainly, whatever is happening in the American media — whether it is the attacks being made on The New York Times by trans activists for failing to meet their demands, or Don Lemon’s Archie Bunker impression — the revelations at Fox News are deeply obvious, yet also stupendously satisfying.