The Bubble: Acosta-Miller rumble was poetry vs. policy, conservatives say

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When asked to clarify new Trump’s take on immigration reform, White House adviser Stephen Miller told CNN’s Jim Acosta, a first-generation Cuban American, that his question was “outrageous, insulting, and foolish.”
USA TODAY

Each week, USA TODAY’s OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other’s media bubble.

This week, we saw starkly different reactions in left-leaning and right-leaning news media to Wednesday’s heated exchange between White House adviser Stephen Miller sparred and CNN reporter Jim Acosta over the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Economy (RAISE) Act. 

Commentators on right-leaning sites attacked Acosta as a biased example of what is wrong with the mainstream media. They said he was preaching a sermon rather than asking a question. And they slammed him for treating the poem The New Colossus, which is inscribed on base of the Statue of Liberty, as policy 

Left-leaning commentators slammed Miller as a racist and said his arguments about the poem echo arguments commonly made by white nationalists. 

Last week: McCain no hero, conservatives and liberals say

From the right: ‘Poetry isn’t policy’

National Review writer David French acknowledged how much political partisanship determines how one views the Acosta-Miller exchange, calling it “an almost perfect Rorschach test for our polarized times.”

While conservatives saw the clash as facts versus feelings, the Left viewed the exchange through the prism of kind versus cruel.

And therein lies the problem. In politics, kind versus cruel is a compelling narrative. And when it comes to the battle of facts versus feelings, feelings are very potent indeed. 

French said he “immediately and viscerally sided with Miller” because “poetry isn’t policy.” 

But, “In the battle over immigration, the conservative, restrictionist argument isn’t facts versus feelings. It’s facts and feelings. Or, to put it another way, it’s poetry and policy,” French wrote. “There is a compassionate story to tell — of compassion for struggling Americans trying to make their way in a changing economy.”

From the left: ‘Racists celebrated Miller’s performance’

During his exchange with Acosta, Miller downplayed the significance of the poem, which reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”

Miller said the poem was “added later” and wasn’t part of the original statue. 

Think Progress’ Rebekah Entralgo said Miller was repeating “a popular refrain among white nationalists” who responded to Miller’s comments “enthusiastically” on Twitter.  Entralgo cited examples from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, white nationalist Richard Spencer and a white supremacist website. 

From the right: Acosta the reason daily briefings should be off camera

Acosta, who’s “been one of the loudest voices grousing about the Trump administration’s policy of conducting off-camera press briefings,” is actually “one of the strongest arguments for keeping daily briefings off camera,” wrote David Harsanyi for The Federalist. 

“Listening to him, a person might have been under the impression that the First Amendment features a clause granting senior White House correspondents from CNN the right to grandstand on national TV every day,” wrote Harsanyi. 

“These exchanges become debates rather than journalistic encounters,” said Harsanyi, who accused Acosta of delivering a “sermon.”

Harsanyi added that The New Colossus “is neither a policy guide nor a reflection of the Constitution.”

From the left: Miller ‘outlandishness’ overshadows ‘insidious racism’

Jezebel’s Stassa Edwards was not the least surprised by Miller’s confrontation with Acosta. 

“This is an amazing moment,” Miller said to CNN’s Jim Acosta. Indeed, “amazing” is a word you could use to describe the exchange. There are probably others that are equally descriptive, ones that perhaps evoke the tiring blend of hostility, evasion, and racism that continues to define not only the tenor of the White House but its policies as well. But since Miller’s words were senseless, little more than the standard Trump-inspired spectacle meant only to reaffirm the White House’s closely held sense of its martyrdom, it’s perhaps best to stick with “amazing.”

“Miller’s outlandishness will overshadow the insidious racism of both the RAISE Act and his defense of it, turning it into a yet another cable news debate over the White House’s treatment of the press,” Edwards wrote. 

From the right: ‘Preacher Jim Acosta should shut his loud, irritating face’

“Seriously, shut up. Shut the hell up. Shut your face hole. Be quiet. Zip it. Shush!” wrote Caleb Howe for Red State. 

You feel that? Do you feel that irritation and anger and rejection of you and your premise and your point of view? I’m a vocal Trump administration critic and pro-immigration squish with a soft spot for amnesty, but people like Jim Acosta make even me livid. Which means I’m on the same side of an issue with the die-hard Trumpists. And that just makes me even angrier.

Howe’s problem with Acosta had nothing to do with Acosta being a CNN reporter, or even with his argument. His problem was that he kept interrupting. 

“Is there anything worse than someone who won’t shut up after a question for long enough to even hear the answer?” he wrote. “It’s infuriating.”

Howe added that Miller’s argument about The New Colossus being added later was “stupid.” 

“Being technically correct about it coming later is trivial in light of the reality of history,” Howe wrote.

From the left: ‘Ghoulish’ Miller dumped childhood friend for being Latino

The Daily Kos fiercely attacked Miller in the wake of the news conference. 

“Aside from being downright atrocious for citing a hate group founded by a noted eugenicist, the ghoulish Stephen Miller’s rant in defense of Donald Trump’s neo-Nazi-approved ‘legal’ immigration bill was chock-full of anti-immigrant propaganda that has no basis in reality,” said staff writer Gabe Ortiz. 

Oritz said Miller has conducted a “life-long personal campaign” of “hostility towards people of color.” As evidence, he cites a Univision report in which Miller’s old classmates said he made fun of kids who didn’t speak English well and that he “complained to school administrators about announcements in Spanish and festivals that celebrated diversity.”

One student said he and Miller had been childhood friends until Miller told him “I can’t be your friend any more because you are Latino.” 

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