Rep. Todd Rokita already had a hard enough job as it was going on CNN to try to blame the Democrats for a Republican-planned-and-instigated federal shutdown. Things only took a turn downhill when the anchor, Carol Costello, started arguing with him. The frustration caused Rokita to take a condescending tone, like he was talking to an errant teenager instead of a professional news anchor. Then he cracked: “Carol, you’re beautiful, but you need to be honest as well.”
Costello immediately ended the interview. In retrospect, she probably did Rokita a favor, saving him from saying things like, “Carol, you wear that sweater very well, but your grasp of the facts isn’t quite as tight,” or “Carol, your hair looks like it smells great, but your head is full of lies.”
However, just as the blame for Republicans shutting down the government clearly lays with the Democrats, so should we understand that Rokita’s misbehavior is actually the fault of CNN. By egregiously choosing to put a female anchor on the air, they were setting him up to fail.
