Dispatches from the CNN Style Guide

This is satire:

This is brilliant. MT @MikeKMorrison: The journalist’s guide to identifying firearms. pic.twitter.com/bYhf9QOr7Q

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) September 17, 2013

This is reality — or the lack there of inside the addled mind of CNN newsreader Don Lemon, as spotted by Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller, who notes that “An Automatic Weapon Is Whatever CNN’s Don Lemon Says It Is:”

Lemon: “For me, an automatic weapon is…”

That says it all, doesn’t it? For people who live in consensus reality, an automatic weapon is an automatic weapon. For Don Lemon and people who agree with Don Lemon, an automatic weapon is any weapon they want to call an automatic weapon, whether or not that weapon is, y’know, automatic.

Once Don Lemon has made that pronouncement, once he’s changed the definition to suit his argument, any disagreement is merely semantics.

A couple of days ago, my colleagues Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan debated “What Is Truth” — short answer: Not likely found on CNN:

[jwplayer player=”1″ mediaid=”75172″]

Oh, and Malcolm Muggeridge — call your office.

Update: National Review’s Charles Cooke on “Don Lemon, Automatic Weapons, and the Integrity of Language:”

Under the law, “automatic” is the word we use to describe weapons that continue to fire for as long as the trigger is depressed. “Semi-automatic,” by contrast, is the word we use to describe weapons that will fire once with each trigger pull. In some states, one can indeed walk into a gun store and, having undergone a background check and filled in some federal forms, walk out with a semi-automatic rifle. One cannot, however, do this for automatics, which are regulated heavily under the 1934 Firearms Act and which cannot be purchased without special permission from the ATF. What Lemon is talking about having bought is a standard semi-automatic weapon — an AR-15 or somesuch. It is not an automatic weapon.

Having been corrected, what Lemon should have said was, “you’re right, I meant ‘semi-automatic.’” But he didn’t. Instead, he said:

“For me, that’s an automatic weapon.”

What?

It does not especially matter that Don Lemon doesn’t know the difference between ”automatic” and “semi-automatic” rifles. Lots of people don’t. But it really does matter that, having been told he was wrong on national television, Lemon contended that his prior ignorance — and not objective physical and legal reality — should prevail. Legally and functionally, the item that the panel is discussing was a semi-automatic weapon. There is no “dispute” over this. This is not an ongoing “debate.” It’s not a matter of “opinion.” It’s not an issue on which we can “agree to disagree.” It’s not an “altercation” that can give way to “compromise.” It’s a fact. An undisputed fact. And yet, for some reason, Lemon seemed to believe that he could talk his way out of his mistake.