Christiane Amanpour doing her best to prove Trump is right about CNN as 'enemy of the people'

A stunning moment took place yesterday on CNN, as that network's "chief international anchor" interviewed former FBI chief James Comey and suggested that federal law enforcement should have "shut down" chants of "lock her up" at Trump rallies. Amanpour, who also is employed by PBS as host of Amanpour & Company (replacing Charlie Rose after his sexual bullying of younger female staffers was exposed), appeared to be completely serious in suggesting that political speech that she disagrees with ought to be forcibly repressed by federal law enforcement.

YouTube screen gab (cropped). For all his flaws, James Comey recognized the constitutional stupidity on display by someone who makes her living based on the First Amendment. The exchange is worth watching for the 90 seconds of the video below. A transcript follows, if you are in a hurry, though I urge you to watch and make your own determination on her sincerity.

Amanpour: "Of course, 'Lock her up' was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign. Do you in, retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language, that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it kind of is hate speech?" Comey: "That's not a role for government to play. The beauty of this country is people can say what they want, even if it's misleading and it's demagoguery. The people should have shut it down were Republicans who understand the rule of law and the values that they claim to stand for. Shame on them, but it wasn't a role for government to play." Isn't someone agitating for repression of political speech a genuine "enemy of the people"? Isn't a network that honors such a person with high position and broadcast visibility agitating to violate constitutional protections on free speech an "enemy of the Constitution" and therefore an "enemy of the people"? To my mind, these apparently sincerely held views of Amanpour disqualify her from appearing on taxpayer-funded PBS more than Charlie Rose's peccadilloes did. Incidentally, Amanpour has been married for more than two decades to a former high-ranking State Department official, James ("Jamie") Rubin. I wonder if he shares her view on the irrelevance of the First Amendment to the suppression of Trump-supporters' free speech.