CBS News Is Revolting (in More Ways Than One)

Bari Weiss is made of much sterner stuff than I am. 

I get paid to rant about things; Bari has to babysit adults acting like toddlers who had their favorite toys taken away and who are now told to clean their rooms. And she has to do it while keeping a dying enterprise on life support, while getting screamed at by every liberal in the country. 

It's a job that is, at least arguably, harder than the one Ed has here to keep us all in line. 

@sunnyright Dr. Strangelove (1964): "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room! CBS (2026): "We can't do any journalism here! This is the News Room!" https://t.co/bnzv9CFWNP

— Derek Malcolm 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@goingoffdgrid) October 30, 2026

Remember when Scott Pelley left in a huff? He was appalled that Bari didn't quiver in fear at the prospect of his leaving after he blasted her in front of her whole staff. The same media that thought Rather's "fake but accurate" excuse for pushing forgeries as news was brilliant treated him as a modern-day Murrow rather than a two-bit Dan Rather. 

The latest ridiculous dustup turns out to be the newsroom's attempt to cover up for Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola. 

The New York Times did a deep dive that exposed that Peltola wasn't just engaged in dirty tricks, which ran counter to her entire campaign pitch of bringing rational bipartisanship back to the Senate, but that she keeps lying about it despite the reams of evidence that she knew it was the plan. 

Her campaign combed Alaska for Dan Sullivan's to get on the ballot, and hit paydirt. The plan was to make getting elected to the Senate difficult by splitting Dan Sullivan votes in as many ways as possible in Alaska's Byzantine Ranked Choice Voting system. Perhaps the strategy was legal, and perhaps not. But for a candidate who literally said that people who lied to the voters belong in jail, she sure does a lot of lying to voters. 

That's a story. Even The New York Times thought it was a big enough story to do a deep investigation and splash it across their newspaper. 

Bari agreed, but not her newsroom, and boy did they b***h about it. 

"This is a scandal," Weiss declared to staff.

According to multiple sources on the call, several CBS News staffers pushed back at Weiss' enthusiasm over the bombshell New York Times report alleging Democrats schemed to find a Dan Sullivan to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, in hopes of aiding Democratic opponent Mary Peltola.

Many on the call shrugged it off as routine politics and said Republicans have also engaged in similar scheming.

When Weiss asked for other examples of ballot confusion, "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan pointed to New Hampshire Senate candidate John Sununu, suggesting that midterm voters might confuse him with his brother, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. 

"Face The Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan allegedly suggested that Republican New Hampshire Senate candidate John Sununu may cause ballot confusion among voters thinking his brother, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, was running in that race. (Sophia Park/Getty Images; Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia)

CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe also insisted that such tactics are nothing new. Earlier that morning, during his appearance on "CBS Mornings," O'Keefe stressed to viewers that what happened in Alaska "could be a dirty trick, but it's not illegal," adding that "this has happened before, kind of." He pointed to the 2016 Alaska Senate race when former Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan — no relation to the U.S. Senator of the same name — briefly ran against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary, hoping "name recognition" of the other sitting senator would help his own candidacy.

To me, the biggest part of the story is that the Times nailed it down, but Peltola keeps denying it and brushing it off. Whether it is "legal" isn't the issue. Reporters go out of their way to declare that Trump is lying when he says the sky is blue, but Peltola is lying through her teeth and calling the Times a rag (hint: it is, but that isn't the point), you would expect reporters to care. Especially in a close, important Senate race. 

Republicans have long been suspicious about the candidacy of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher who is among four Senate candidates listed on Alaska's rank-choice ballot. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska seeking to block certification of the election results if the incumbent senator loses and votes cast for the other Sullivan could have changed the outcome.

On Wednesday, The New York Times alleged his candidacy was no coincidence.

"In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can," the Times began its report Wednesday. 

"The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state. ... [I]f the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the senator crucial votes on the state’s unusual, four-person ballot. The plan worked," the report said.

To be clear, I don't have the emotional energy to get outraged by a politician being a scumbag; it's pretty common, and it's like getting annoyed that your dog barks at squirrels. After a while, it becomes background noise, or you go insane.

But it does go to the heart of the campaign pitch here, and is similar to everyone swooning when Obama says he wants politics to be nice and cooperative, but the NaziEvilRacistSexistHomophobicSatanic Republicans won't work with him no matter how nice he is. 

C'mon, man. He's the most divisive guy in the room. 

It's obvious why the reporters didn't want to cover the story, and just as obvious that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses to pretend it isn't one. You can literally see it in their faces when they talk to either Democrats or Republicans.

Bari has what most people in her business would consider a dream job. Running CBS News, a storied institution with over a century of history, would be the pinnacle of anyone's career.

Right?

You couldn't pay me enough money to do that job. It would drive me insane. 

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