Last night, John pointed out the glaringly obvious fact that the liberal media is ready and willing to forgive any Democratic politician for virtually anything they do, even if a Republican in a similar situation would be run out of town on a rail. In that case, it was Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and racism. But the other, equally obvious fact is the media is also generally ready to forgive one of their own for insensitivity and verbal abuse as long as they’re willing to apologize.

The latest example of this phenomenon came with the revelation that CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins had some “ism” problems in her past as well. Only she was offending the LGBT community rather than African-Americans. Back in college, she let fly with some not-so-tolerant language which was recently unearthed and has come back to haunt her. (The Independent)

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins has apologised for offensive tweets she said she posted in college that referenced anti-gay slurs.

The 26-year-old journalist said she regretted posting the messages nearly seven years ago, in which she called one of her friends a “fag” and told another she wasn’t sure she wanted to “room with a lesbian”.

“When I was in college, I used ignorant language in a few tweets to my friends,“ she tweeted Sunday night.” It was immature but it doesn’t represent the way I feel at all. I regret it and apologise.”

The old tweets from Collins’ college days were dug up by a Republican LGBTQ group that the Independent identifies as the “Log House Republicans” but I’m pretty sure they’re talking about the Log Cabin Republicans. You can forgive the Brits for getting a bit confused on that one, I suppose. Also for the strange way they spell “apologise.” (For that matter, I needed to double-check and make sure the tweet in question was actually insulting to lesbians because “fag” also means cigarettes in England.)

When they exposed the old tweets on Twitter, the LCR made sure to tag CNN, their Washington bureau chief, the VP of communications their political director. So that’s it for Collins, right? I mean, you can’t work for such a woke outfit with that sort skeleton rattling around in your closet.

Nope. Not even close. One of CNN’s vice presidents, Matt Dornic, hopped on the social media network and came riding to her rescue.

I’m a proud gay man. And I am a proud friend of @kaitlancollins. Tho I’m disappointed that she ever used the word (even as an immature college kid), I can say with certainty it doesn’t reflect her feelings toward the LGBTQ community. She’s apologized and I accept that.

— Matt Dornic (@mdornic) October 7, 2018

Hey, she was just an immature college kid, right? And besides… she apologized. So we can all accept her apology and just move on with our lives.

While I hate to be the rude toad at the garden party, it’s worth noting that the apology only came after she was called out on it. Of course, it’s equally possible that she had totally forgotten about a couple of poorly conceived tweets from back when she was in school and probably only had a couple of hundred followers at most.

Look, for what it’s worth, I personally think this is exactly how such an incident should be handled. Most all of us have done or said some things as kids that we regret later in life and being pilloried or having your career ruined over something like that is unfair in the extreme. But that’s not the problem here. The real issue is that CNN, MSNBC, and the major liberal newspapers don’t apply the rules evenly. You probably remember when all of Joy Reid’s old gay-bashing blog posts came to light, right? And she still seems to have her job. Such generous forgiveness is not applied to the other side of the aisle.

This story about Collins will fall off the front pages and the on-air panel discussions almost immediately, assuming you hear about it at all. But if that were a Republican politician or a conservative activist or journalist, it would be a national news story until the next shiny object caught their attention.

The problem is that the internet has a very long memory. And as long as the people trusted with delivering the news keep applying double standards, someone will have to keep calling them out on it.