On Friday morning, we laughed at the Daily Caller’s new majority owner Neil Patel claiming the now-Tucker-Carlson-Free outlet will “not be partisan in any way.” How long did it take before our skepticism was justified by an obviously partisan story?
Approximately seven hours and 45 minutes.
On Thursday, Apple tapped its environmental director Lisa Jackson to lead the company's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. On Friday afternoon, Chris White published a “FLASHBACK:” story about how Jackson had used an “alias” email while serving as EPA head under President Obama. It does not in any way even attempt to justify why or how Jackson’s emails eight years ago are relevant to her ability to lead this initiative. (They’re not.)
Given the Caller’s repeated yet supposedly accidental dalliances with white supremacy, one might think they would’ve refrained from running this pointless attack on a woman of color leading a racial equity program in response to global protests of racist policing if they really cared about not being (seen as) racist. (At a minimum, they could’ve gotten someone other than the white guy named White to write it!)
And given Patel’s claim that he wants the outlet to “not be partisan,” it seems odd to highlight this nakedly partisan attack.
Particularly given how a certain Trump EPA administrator had at least four different email addresses, something that recently came back up last Wednesday. (And don't get us started on Trump children’s advisors' emails.) If the Daily Caller wanted to talk about Jackson’s emails and at least appear nonpartisan, it could have at least referenced Alex Guillén’s tweet that “Scott Pruitt’s non-public emails were so non-public even his closest aides were sometimes confused” as Samantha Dravis is seen asking who Pruitt’s “Sooners7” address is when he emailed her.
But no, Scott Pruitt’s Email Account Is Nothing Like Lisa Jackson’s!
That’s not sarcasm, that’s the headline of a Daily Caller piece from 2018 when Pruitt was hauled up to testify about it to Congress. Apparently Jackson’s decision to combine her dog’s name and her New Jersey hometown constitute the creation of a whole new fake person, while Pruitt’s use of his home state’s “Sooners” (the now-glorified name for the first generation of Oklahomans who snuck into the territory before the official “first come, first serve” opening to white people, cheaters who broke the rules set by the government that dispossessed Native Americans of their land) is completely different and totally not a problem.
One is an email address based on the name of where the person lived, the other is a name based on a nickname for people where the person lived!
See? Totally different!
Including such a defense, though, would perhaps make it too obviously partisan. Best to just attack the Democratic woman of color for her leadership, and not get involved in any messy partisanship by defending the Trump administration.
Great to see such a timely and sublimely nonpartisan story from the Daily Caller, the true bastion of journalistic integrity Patel wants it to be.
Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories: