CNN commentator Scott Jennings tore into the New York Times‘ analysis of the American flag that suggested Old Glory had become a symbol of divisiveness, calling the argument “deranged.”
Over the holiday weekend, the Times tweeted, “Today, flying the American flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation,” with a link to their piece, “A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite.”
“How deranged, how crazy have we gotten over our national politics that, if you see someone flying an American flag, you run the other direction, because you assume that you all don’t agree on politics?” Jennings asked on CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday. “It’s crazy.”
“I really hate this viewpoint,” added Jennings, who previously served as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration. But it wasn’t a viewpoint that surprised the commentator, chalking it up to just another example of the media-loving to oppose former President Donald Trump.
“Trump said he loved the flag, so now they say they’ve got to be against it. It’s nutty, it’s reflexive partisanship, and it’s awful, and it ought to stop,” Jennings warned.
He was one of several people to blast the Times’ Fourth of July coverage.
“This is insane,” said Alex Plitsas, a contributor at The Federalist.
“Or maybe it’s just a clue that we actually love our country. There’s that,” Ned Ryun said of flag fliers.
Jennings listed some of “the flags that matter,” those being “the ones that our soldiers wear on their uniforms, the one on the moon, the ones that we revere as schoolchildren and say a Pledge of Allegiance to. We’re not saying a pledge to any political party. We are taking a pledge to our country and that’s how we ought to view the flag.”
Newsbusters’ Tim Graham predicted that, after such candid remarks, Jennings’ tenure at CNN may soon be nearing an end.
The Times’ panned report on the stars and stripes comes a few weeks after one of their editorial board members, Mara Gay, stirred controversy for saying she was “disturbed” to see so many American flags during a recent trip to Long Island.