CNN’s John King disgustingly used the recent tragedy with Damar Hamlin’s on-field collapse and cardiac arrest to attack conservatives, particularly the Republicans in the House of Representatives.
King first went on the attack without mentioning either the Congressional Republicans or Damar Hill and his teammates by name, instead generically talking about teamwork, the need for leadership, and finding ways to get along with those on your team with whom you don’t agree. Speaking on that, he said:
“Especially when you have a small majority, you have to accept your responsibility as a member of the team. Pick your business, pick your sport. Imagine if a baseball team goes on the field and after two pitches, the right fielder decides, I want to pitch. It can’t work that way.
“Someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be in charge of any organization. That doesn’t mean you always agree with your boss, you don’t always agree with your manager. You don’t always agree with your coach.”
But then King turned from platitudes about teamwork, leadership, and went on a disgusting line of attack, using Damar Hamlin’s injury as a path by which he could attack Congressional Republicans for not being team players. In his words:
“Imagine those two doctors we just listened to who treated and all the people in the field who cared for that Buffalo Bills player, if somebody said no — or no, I want to do the other job, it doesn’t work that way.
“When you’re on a team, you have to — yes, yes, you go to the boss’ office and you say, I want this, I want this, I want this, but eventually, somebody has to make a decision. And you have to accept the responsibility of the government.”
Adding to that, he said “They don’t want that responsibility. They don’t care about that responsibility. They don’t respect that responsibility.”
Watch him here:
Disgusting: CNN invokes Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest to warn against GOP lawmakers.
"Imagine those two doctors that we just listened to who treated, and all of the people on the field who treated the Buffalo Bills player if they said, 'no, [I don't want to function as a team]'" pic.twitter.com/y1xbrSjLu6— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 5, 2023
Commenters on Twitter were not kind to CNN’s King. Instead they said things like:
“Hey look, rock bottom does have a basement.”
“If one of the doctors had a track record of failing his patients, and for some reason everyone on the field got to vote on which doctor assisted in the emergency, and somehow 200 of them kept voting for him anyway, then this would still be a terrible analogy.”
“Jesus they are so twisted”
“CNN is NOT a moderate news network, as they claim to be. Exhibit A👆”
“By team, he means in lockstep, where no one dares disagree.”
“I continue to be amazed at how incredibly coarse and opportunistic some people are.”
“The last two years were hardly an example of teamwork.”
“Or: no, the government has prohibited me from providing the treatment i know has the best likely success rate for this injury. I must do only what I am allowed.”
“Good thing it’s on CNN and only three people in an airport saw it”
Featured image credit: screengrab from embedded Twitter video