Media double standards don’t come much clearer than this.
CNN’s chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is very upset that President Trump mugged for a photo this month with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol, smiling and holding a comically oversized letter from the Hermit Kingdom’s boy dictator, Kim Jong Un.
“[Trump] is smiling next to a man who runs a gulag jailing some 200,000 North Koreans and who oversaw the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 & the hacking of Sony North America,” an indignant Sciutto tweeted this weekend.
.@realDonaldTrump is smiling next to a man who runs a gulag jailing some 200,000 North Koreans and who oversaw the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 & the hacking of Sony North America. pic.twitter.com/1sH5S9LbVa
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) June 2, 2018
He’s not wrong. North Korea is indeed hell on earth, with the Kim dynasty playing the role of Satan. Trump threatens to legitimize the monsters by cozying up with smiles and praise (see more here).
The amusing thing about Sciutto’s criticism is: When it comes to the White House making overtures towards brutal dictatorships, the CNN correspondent, who served in the State Department under former President Barack Obama, is selectively offended. Recall that in 2014, as Obama restored the U.S.’ formal relations with Cuba, Sciutto’s tone was decidedly different. Reverential, even.
“The call that changed half a century of division: POTUS speaking with #Cuba Pres. Raul Castro yesterday,” CNN’s chief national security correspondent wrote on Twitter on Dec. 17, 2014.
The call that changed half a century of division: POTUS speaking with #Cuba Pres. Raul Castro yesterday pic.twitter.com/3IUr8JIEZL
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 17, 2014
Never mind that the Castros have overseen decades of brutal, murderous oppression. Never mind that the Castros are directly responsible for the murders of thousands of political dissidents.
Never mind that the Castro regime is responsible for the murder, torture and “disappearance” of thousands of political dissidents.
As I’ve written earlier, it’s difficult to put a figure on the number of deaths for which the Castros are responsible, but a Harvard-trained economist “estimates that almost 78,000 innocents may have died trying to flee the dictatorship,” the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady reported. “Another 5,300 are known to have lost their lives fighting communism in the Escambray Mountains (mostly peasant farmers and their children) and at the Bay of Pigs.”
“An estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Fidel’s revolutionary adventures abroad, most notably his dispatch of 50,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1980s to help the Soviet-backed regime fight off the Unita insurgency,” the report adds.
For further perspective, consider this anecdote from Armando Valladares’ 1986 Against All Hope, in which he recounts the Castro regime’s brutal rise to power, just after defeating Gen. Fulgencio Batista’s forces:
Remember: This story is from the early days of the Castro regime. It’ll be decades before the full scope of that family’s reign of terror is fully understood.
Anyway, it’s very bad that Trump let himself be seen cozying up to the North Korean envoy:
Sciutto is welcome to his opinion, but his uneven application of outrage is a bit too cute.
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Full disclosure: This author is a paid contributor with CNN/HLN.
