CNN is nothing if not a paragon of toleration. Or at least, toleration of their own set of beliefs — which of course they don’t have, because of course they’re objective. Coming up next, Don Lemon on why your baby might already be a racist if you leave them near the TV while a Republican is speaking.

So, when star anchor Jake Tapper made an implied joke about the fact that longtime Donald Trump acquaintance Roger Stone might “enjoy” prison for reasons viewers might be able to suss out on their own, a couple of things might have happened:

He was immediately apologetic. After being suspended from the network, he donned professional sack-cloth and apologized profusely for such an insensitive remark. He vowed to never do it again; or. The liberal media ignored it completely.

Actually, it was No. 2.

During a panel discussion on Stone’s arrest last week, an arrest facilitated by a doubtlessly proportional phalanx of armed and armored FBI agents in a pre-dawn Waco-style raid, one panelist noted that “no one’s going to cry” if Stone ends up in the slammer.

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“He might like it,” Tapper quipped.

Video below:

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Roger Stone potentially going to prison: “He might like it” pic.twitter.com/otS6m013cw — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 26, 2019

Do you think Jake Tapper's remark about Roger Stone was homophobic? Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use You're logged in to Facebook. Click here to log out. 97% (597 Votes) 3% (20 Votes)

Few who have followed Stone’s career and persona would have the slightest doubt as to what Tapper meant. Stone is married to a woman, but there’s always been a scarcely concealed undertone in Stone-centric reportage suggesting his sexuality may be fungible, particularly when discussing what’s invariably described as his “flamboyant” style.

This undercurrent all tends to be coded in the fact that Stone is profoundly conscientious about fashion. (He’s even men’s fashion correspondent for the conservative news site The Daily Caller.)

A 2007 profile of Stone by Matt Labash in The Weekly Standard, which more or less introduced the political operative to a wider cultural audience, described him as “a dandy by disposition who boasts of having not bought off-the-rack since he was 17 — he’s now 56” who “taught reporters how to achieve perfect double-dimples underneath their tie knots.”

“The first time I laid eyes on Roger Stone he was standing poolside at a press conference on the roof of the Hotel L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills,” Labash wrote. “With a horseshoe pinkie ring refracting rays from the California sun and a gangster chalk-stripe suit that looked like it had been exhumed from the crypt of (Mafia boss) Frank Costello, Stone was there to help his friend and longtime client Donald Trump explore a Reform party presidential candidacy in 2000.”

Then there was this bit in which the subtext seemed to almost spill over into mere text:

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“I am being chauffeured around Miami in one of Stone’s five Jaguars. At the wheel is A-Mill, his 23-year-old driver/computer whiz/all-around Boy Friday,” Labash wrote. “A-Mill wears a porkpie hat of his own choosing, but with suits, he takes direction from Stone. When he first came to work for him, Stone took him to a haberdashery in Cleveland and lent him the money to buy four suits and some black Peal cap-toe lace-ups. ‘We deduct $50 from his paycheck each week to pay me back,’ says Stone. If you want to roll with Stone, you have to look good. (Stone’s Rules: ‘Look good=feel good.’)”

Right. Labash’s piece became a touchstone for media coverage of Stone in the years since it was published and there were never any shortage of reporters willing to make a nudge-nudge-wink-wink aside about Stone’s style and other lifestyle choices as if they were talking about Charles Nelson Reilly on the “Match Game” back in the 1970s, albeit without any other real evidence in that direction.

Not that I found myself outraged on Stone’s behalf at these sorts of remarks, but, well, I would have liked to have seen someone in the mainstream media using this kind of subtext about Anderson Cooper before he came out and seen how it went. Remember, one of the few media outlets willing to touch that landmine in any serious way was Gawker — and that was only because they’d touch literally anything, which is why they’re no longer in business.

But it’s all right for reporters to make snide insinuations about Stone, since he’s a conservative.

In short, there’s almost no way Jake Tapper meant anything other than what you think he meant, inasmuch as there’s no other context here in which one can see this working. He’s almost certainly making a joke mocking gay prison sex on CNN and getting away with it.

Keep in mind that NeverTrumper John Podhoretz — co-founder of the recently deceased The Weekly Standard, now with Commentary and the New York Post — made almost exactly the same joke and, after a brief period of trying to defend himself, ended up going into self-imposed exile from social media.

“The thing is, given his proclivities, Stone would enjoy prison,” Podhoretz tweeted after the arrest.

When he was called out by gay conservative activist Chris Barron, who said, “This is what homophobic b*****t looks like,” Podhoretz at first denied the intent while deleting the tweet:

oh, he’s not gay, you bizarre apologist — John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) January 25, 2019

He then issued a non-apology apology, in which he didn’t take ownership of the homophobia but acknowledged that “I don’t like the person I can become at times on Twitter,” which is about as close as you can come to taking responsibility for something without taking responsibility for it.

Again, the point is that there’s really one context for this joke. If there’s another, I’d love to hear it from Tapper himself.

Not that he doesn’t have other people willing to advance alternative facts for him. Mediaite defended the anchor by claiming that he was talking about Stone’s love of exposure, something that had come up earlier on the panel.

Sorry, but that’s arrant nonsense that two seconds of reflection would have easily dispelled. While a trial might indeed be a great venue for attention, a conviction and several years behind bars both tend to limit your publicity opportunities significantly.

The idea that Tapper was fatuous enough to engage in Mediaite’s line of thought is to engage in wishful apologetics — say what you will about the CNN mainstay, but few can raise serious doubts regarding his mental readiness.

It may make more sense when you realize what prompted Mediaite to actually weigh in with its apologia pro Jake Tapper: It was a tweet from Donald Trump Jr.

Let’s play the “Imagine the fury if a conservative said something this flagrantly homophobic” Truly disgusting… but of course no consequences. https://t.co/Eths0LnUJG — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 27, 2019

Mediaite may not like the source, but he ain’t wrong.

Even Mediaite’s headline headline — “Donald Trump Jr. Falsely Accuses Jake Tapper of ‘Flagrantly Homophobic’ Remark” — assumes they can see inside Jake Tapper’s head. To be fair, I’m doing the same thing — but I’m doing it with years of evidence and winking remarks from the press regarding Stone behind my argument.

The Mediaite piece willfully ignores all of that and just says that, since Stone likes attention, Tapper thinks he would also like prison. Problem solved, Trump Jr.’s fake news, let’s move along.

At least Mediaite covered this. Outside of conservative media, this hasn’t really gotten any play.

God forbid Karen Pence take a job at a Christian school that doesn’t allow LGBT activity, but let Jake Tapper make a clearly homophobic joke about gay sex in prison regarding Roger Stone and see how loudly the crickets chirp. There’s no apology or explication of the remark on Tapper’s Twitter feed, either.

I did find this pinned tweet at the top, however, which I found oddly apropos in the circumstances:

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” — George Orwell — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 19, 2017

Yes, apparently it does.

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