Another case is the decision by CNN’s Jake Tapper not to interview any Republicans who challenged the certification of electoral votes for President Biden because, he says, they continue “to erode confidence in our democracy” by supporting former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.
Mr. Tapper gets to choose his guests, but is he outraged only at Republican election challengers? Thirty-two Democrats voted against accepting Electoral College results after President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, claiming voting machines were manipulated to create his 118,601-vote Ohio victory.
Yet since the fall of 2014, Mr. Tapper has conducted at least 17 interviews of Democrats who voted to reject the 2004 certification. One leader of that effort, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, has been Mr. Tapper’s guest three times this year alone. The host interviewed another, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, this month. Other Democratic election deniers interviewed by Mr. Tapper since 2014 include Rep. Barbara Lee, Sen. Ed Markey, the now-deceased Rep. John Lewis, and former Reps. Lacy Clay and Jesse Jackson Jr.
I think Democrats who voted in 2005 against certification and Republicans who did so in 2021 were both wrong. But will Mr. Tapper employ the same standard with Democratic election deniers that he has applied to Republicans?
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