Then, last week, a different sort of Keilar sotto voce conversation surfaced in and around CNN: In the wake of President Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, in which he warned that “equality and democracy are under assault,” Keilar took to Twitter to condemn Biden’s use of uniformed Marines as part of his backdrop. The criticism, which she would expand upon in an analysis piece noting her status as a member of a military family, angered the Biden White House and specifically chief of staff Ron Klain, who retweeted a liberal blogger who had called Keilar “one of John Malone’s propagandists”—a reference to the powerful Discovery shareholder who first previewed the company’s desire to reform CNN last fall. (Klain has also tweeted praise for Harwood, and retweeted a tweet labeling CNN “diet Fox.” Politico, the Beltway bible, has declared a new “Biden-CNN rift.” Slow news week, I suppose.)

Anyway, this time around the rumor inside CNN held that Keilar was going after Biden in order to compensate—or, some argued, overcompensate—for her previous criticisms of Republicans, essentially in an effort to appease Licht and protect her career. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was subconscious, maybe it was just an emotive and expressive broadcaster articulating her truth. Regardless, many around CNN had a theory, and few thought it was some Joycean stream of consciousness absent an agenda. This is cable news, dear reader, everyone wants something.