They didn’t listen to me at CBS, not that I’m surprised.

The fact is, however, that 60 Minutes producers and correspondent Lesley Stahl were probably already at work on Sunday’s prime-time 14-minute tribute to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene when I wrote here a month ago that we Americans like the extremist Republican congresswoman as much as possible. That we should adjust her crazy idea of a national divorce a separation of red states from blue to stop instead

here

.

The coordinated attention Greene receives is her oxygen, allowing her to spread the outrageous, divisive messages and far-right conspiracy theories that endear her to the white nationalist public, and make her a fundraising juggernaut.

And now here I am, (sheepishly) feeling like Michael Corleone in The Godfather

part

III: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

However, it’s not so much Greene and her antics as the media. Too many reporters assignment editors and producers are obsessed with attention-crazed, anti-democratic demagogues like the congressman and her idol, Donald Trump. Tuesday was a two-fer: Reporters swarmed Manhattan to cover both the former president’s criminal arraignment and the pro-Trump rally there for which Greene was the self-proclaimed head cheerleader.

Trump joins some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today, she told the Right Side Broadcasting Network. Nelson Mandela was arrested, was in prison. Jesus! Jesus was arrested and killed by the Roman government. (Not only did Greene get no backlash for those idiotic parallels, she got a kiss on the cheek afterwards from the interviewer for the Right Network, a man she used to be in a relationship with.)

The Trump Show was back and the star shared the spotlight with a true apprentice and successor awaiting.

For a while I thought the media, especially the cable news networks, were repenting for their journalistic sins in 2015 and 2016, when news outlets sold billions of dollars in free airtime and countless inches

print coverage

about the performative Trump and his hate speech. Even Fox News no longer carries every Trump rally live and in full.

Or maybe they hadn’t seen the light, only the ratings, clicks, and ad dollars weren’t what they used to be.

Whether or not an indicted Trump reclaims media attention on the old scale, Greene represents new material and a fresh face for news outlets that thrive on controversy and conflict.

I’m reminded of what disgraced former CBS chief Les Moonves said in 2016 about hyper-covering Trump: It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.

His successors at the network should say the same about Greene. Yes, she’s a newsmaker, but that doesn’t justify the coveted price of a profile on the venerable 60 minutes. And it really doesn’t warrant so lightly challenging a woman who still considers Trump to be the real president.

Just a week before the profile aired, Greene led a tour of the D.C. prison to visit the accused political prisoners there, she lists charged with crimes related to the January 6, 2021 riot. In December, she said that if had she organized events that day, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been armed.

Yet interviewer Stahl Greene didn’t ask about the 2020 presidential election or the terrorist attack on the Capitol, even though she and like-minded Republicans use their House majorities to rewrite history on both.

Instead, Stahl sympathetically repeated to a knit-looking Greene some of the swear words that people on both sides have used against her. But she didn’t follow up with examples of the many attacks Greene has directed at others. later in the piece Stahl did confront Greene about calling Democrats pedophiles. But when Greene unapologetically faced the statement, Stahl was literally and naively nearly speechless. Wow, she muttered, rolling her eyes.

That’s how predictably emboldened Greene was by the exchange she was tweeted this the next day: I’ll say it again: Democrats are the party of pedophiles, link to a reprehensible video titled The Predator President. The mash

upwards

clips of Biden with children, including his harrowing encounter with a boy who, like the president, stutters as proof of the president’s alleged depravity.

Greene refused steel

she once had

liked a social media post suggesting that someone fired a bullet into the head of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosis. Maybe her staff did it, she claimed. Perhaps Stahl could have followed up on something more timely: whether Greene takes any responsibility when such attacks prompt an unhinged extremist to hammer Pelosi’s husband Paul’s head, for example. But no.

It’s clear that Steel spent a lot of time with Greene. There was video of the two women talking in Washington, at Greene’s white-columned parsonage in Georgia, on the street in her rural district with Greene’s adoring constituents, and even at the gym, where Greene lifted weights.

But Stahl apparently didn’t spend that much time researching Greene’s record. She introduced Greene with the contradictory comment that she is known for being smart and fearless, and has a history of believing in conspiracy theories. Stahl said Greene influences the direction of Republican policy, but did not say which one. In fact, Greene (like Trump) reflects a Republican party that has become policy-phobic. Culture wars are their thing.

At least Stahl brought up the impending showdown with President Biden and Democrats in Congress over raising the country’s debt limit so the government can pay its bills. Greene reiterated Republicans ransoming their votes, big cuts, and Stahl pushed for details. But when Greene responded with the weak party line to scrap Biden’s green energy programs, Stahl failed to notice what has been widely reported: One of the biggest beneficiaries to date is a job-creating solar panel manufacturer in Greenes County.

Late Sunday, Greene told the Semafor news website that she liked the 60 Minutes piece. No wonder. If you’re trying to normalize the extremely abnormal, what wasn’t to like about it?

@jackiekcalmes