Maybe he was past his prime?

Perhaps CNN should ask first why they have to explain anything to an anchor on a competing network.

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton teamed up with the National Urban League late yesterday to demand an explanation of Don Lemon’s firing on Monday. Their joint statement called him a “superb journalist” and more than suggested that CNN wanted to fire Lemon after 17 years because they just found out he’s black and gay, or something:

Rev. Al Sharpton is demanding CNN provide an explanation for why the network fired longtime anchor Don Lemon after the journalist implied “larger issues at play” led to his ouster.

The civil rights activist and president of the National Action Network blasted the cable network for “silencing” Lemon’s voice which he said brought light to civil rights issues.

“We are completely stunned at the termination of Don Lemon,” Sharpton said Wednesday in a joint statement with president and CEO of the National Urban League Marc Morial.

“Throughout his career, Don has been a superb journalist who was very open to the civil rights community on issues others wouldn’t touch… With the health of our democracy undergoing perhaps its greatest test, we cannot afford to silence his voice.”

First off, no one’s been “silenced.” Lemon can still speak out, and he’s notable enough for people to pay attention. Tucker Carlson didn’t get silenced by being fired from Fox News either, and Chris Cuomo’s termination at CNN didn’t silence him. They have much more opportunity and range to speak out than most Americans, and plenty of people itching to amplify their output. Lemon’s not silenced at all; he’s just not employed at CNN any longer.

If Sharpton’s that incensed about “silencing,” though, you’d think Sharpton might have been more vocal about Tiffany Cross’ firing last November. Since Sharpton’s employer MSNBC did the firing in that case, I guess he can’t argue that she was “silenced” — even though Cross certainly made that argument:

“I am disheartened to learn of MSNBC’s decision to cancel The Cross Connection, at such a crucial time — four days before the midterm elections. From the beginning, we were intentional about centering communities of color, elevating issues and voices often ignored by the mainstream media, and disrupting the echo chambers. As a result, viewers consistently made The Cross Connection MSNBC’s highest-rated weekend show,” she wrote in a statement.

For those who don’t recall, MSNBC canned Cross after a very public feud with Megyn Kelly, whom Cross called “the blackface expert.” The final straw likely was when Cross called Ron DeSantis “Ron DeStupid” on air, and that Florida “literally looks like the dick of the country.” Classy!

This was thought to be the “last straw” that got Tiffany Cross fired from MSNBC- she calls Florida, “the dick of the country”. Hours later she was let go. pic.twitter.com/JqEXTw7LxU

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) November 4, 2022

A few days after this — when Cross had already cleaned out her office — DeSantis won re-election by 19 points and turned nearly every county in Florida red.

At any rate, Sharpton kept a very low profile after Cross’ termination, even when other black leaders accused MSNBC of exactly the same thing Sharpton accuses CNN of doing in firing Lemon. “More than 40” black leaders demanded a meeting with MSNBC’s execs at that time, too. Guess whose name is notably absent from this report, though?

A group of more than 40 black leaders across politics and media reportedly slammed MSNBC over its decision to cut ties with controversial weekend anchor Tiffany Cross.

The leaders, including NAACP president Derrick Johnson, Color of Change president Rashad Robinson and ex-ESPN personality Jemele Hill, have requested a meeting with MSNBC president Rashida Jones to address the situation, Semafor reported Monday.

“We are deeply disappointed in the abrupt cancellation of the Cross Connection and the unexpected ouster of its host, just four days before a critical midterm election,” the top officials said in a letter to MSNBC brass.

Oddly — or not — Sharpton’s name never comes up. A month later, Variety offered a brief explanation in its coverage of MSNBC’s attempts to push past the controversy. The focus fell on MSNBC president Rashida Jones, the black woman who fired Cross, and Sharpton appears almost at the end to declare himself Switzerland:

 For many industry observers, the situation has been heightened by the fact that two prominent Black women journalists are at public odds.

“I don’t want to see someone like Tiffany move backwards, and I don’t want there to be a double standard for Rashida,” Rev. Al Sharpton, the host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation,” told Variety.

A “double standard”? That’s precisely what Sharpton’s applying here, this time from the safety of a platform that isn’t dealing with a problematic host. In other words, this looks like Sharpton’s attempt to exploit the situation for competitive value for his network.

Besides, this is laughable even without the hypocrisy. Not only is Lemon not a “superb journalist,” he barely qualifies for that description at all. His career as a talking head at CNN has been plagued with low ratings that would have gotten anyone else canceled years ago, both in prime time and on his morning show the past few months. Lemon has also repeatedly demonstrated his lack of intellectual depth and preparation, which has been a boon for bloggers but an ongoing embarrassment for CNN. In February, when Lemon came back from “reflection” on his misogyny, I put together a brief list of his most notable nuggets from just the past two years:

• NOAA official to Lemon: No, “climate change” is not responsible for Hurricane Ian
• Oops: Lemon suggests reparations from royals … and gets stuffed
• Great moments in “journalism”: Don Lemon *literally* sings Biden’s praises over … seven cents
• Don Lemon: It’s time to start shaming the unvaccinated and leaving them behind
• Important theological update from Don Lemon: “God is not about hindering people or even judging people”
• Lemon: Let’s face it, Jesus Christ “admittedly was not perfect when he was here on the Earth”

And let’s not forget the poisonous atmosphere around Lemon, too. A few weeks after his return from the CNN woodshed over the claim that women are past their prime by 50, Variety offered an in-depth look at Lemon’s misogyny and backstage maliciousness that had everyone questioning why CNN allowed him back in the studio:

Back in 2008, Don Lemon was co-anchoring CNN’s “Live From” weekday show with Kyra Phillips, a gig that he landed after he arrived at the network two years prior from local news in Chicago. For months, tensions between the pair kept mounting. On more than one occasion, a “Live From” producer and a newsroom supervisor had to pull Lemon off the air during a commercial break because of the anchor’s provocative antics, not unlike his recent declaration that the 51-year-old Nikki Haley isn’t a viable presidential candidate because she “isn’t in her prime.” Amid the charged atmosphere, sources say Lemon disrespected colleague Nancy Grace on the air and Soledad O’Brien during an editorial meeting attended by roughly 30 staffers. …

But his antipathy toward Phillips was particularly concerning and had many members of the close-knit Atlanta news team on edge. While Phillips was on assignment in Iraq — a high-profile gig that Lemon coveted — he vented his disappointment at being passed over by tearing up pictures and notes on top of and inside Phillips’ desk in the news pod they shared, according to two sources who worked there at the time. When she returned from Iraq, things only got weirder. One night while dining with members of the news team, she received the first of two threatening text messages from an unknown number on her flip phone that warned, “Now you’ve crossed the line, and you’re going to pay for it.” Phillips was visibly rattled and quickly enlisted CNN’s higher ups to identify the sender.

Remarkably, the texts were traced back to Lemon, according to those same sources. A human resources investigation was launched, and while the findings were never disclosed to the growing pool of staffers who were aware of the situation, Lemon was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips and moved to the weekends. It was a demotion by any objective measure and understood to be some kind of disciplinary action. It appears to be the last time he was paired with a female anchor until his most recent assignment on “CNN This Morning With Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.”

This raises questions, all right, but it’s not why CNN fired Lemon on Monday. It’s why they didn’t fire him fifteen years ago, and why they didn’t fire him in February. It raises the question of why Sharpton thinks this misogynistic, ignorant fool is a “superb journalist.” And maybe it should raise a question for Lemon about whether he really wants CNN to explain his firing to Sharpton as fully and publicly as Sharpton is demanding.

And hey, here’s a thought: why not just demand that MSNBC hire this “superb journalist” as a host? If Lemon is really that valuable, shouldn’t MSNBC rush to snap him up? And if Rashida Jones doesn’t, does that make her as racist as Sharpton insinuates CNN to be?