I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts”, when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong.
What bothered me about the incident was that it was what Digby would call Village behavior: Moore is an outsider, he’s uncouth, so he gets smeared as unreliable even though he actually got it right. It’s sort of a minor-league version of the way people who pointed out in real time that Bush was misleading us into war are to this day considered less “serious” than people who waited until it was fashionable to reach that conclusion. And appointing Gupta now, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.
I vividly remember the CNN exchanges between Moore and Gupta; it was peculiar because despite all my distaste for Moore's theatrics I sympathized with him on that one. Gupta tried to tar Moore as an 'outsider' who 'doesn't get it'. Change means bringing those who have been wrong and mislead our country into this miserable state of affairs need to held to account. Gupta is but one of many on this list. Not change we can believe in.
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