Jeff “Mother” Zucker, head of CNN, showed his fearless leadership style by hiring deep-state flameout Andrew McCabe. But the move also cast him in a new role as heir to the infamous Captain Motoharu Okamura of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Zucker once proudly proclaimed: “I think it’s the sign of a leader to step up and say, you know, when something’s not working to have the guts to reverse it . . . The worst thing you can do is to let that mistake linger.”
The Pillsbury Doughboy of cable news had to be channeling Captain Okamura, who, in an analogous situation to CNN’s current nosedive in the ratings war, stoically said, “I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks . . . ”
What Okamura had in mind was the suicidal kamikaze, “The Divine Wind.”
In the case of the inept Zucker, it was probably mistranslated to him as “The Breaking Wind,” given how his earlier reign at NBC turned that network into a malodorous laughingstock referred to by critics as Nothing But Crap.
Zucker “left” when Comcast took over, blown out of 30 Rock with all the grace of a supersonic, low-level, rocket seat ejection into a hail storm, only to land at CNN where, true to form, he’s changed the once-proud meaning of CNN into Crappy Non News.
Now, just like Okamura, Zucker’s been casting about for “volunteers” to make, as it were, the ultimate sacrifice.
Don’t expect Chris “Fredo” Cuomo or Don “The Unfire-able” Lemon to qualify. Recent manly malfunctions by both involving out-of-studio incidents have caused Zucker to seek talent elsewhere. And who should he find but Andrew (Freaking) McCabe.
Zucker is a genius!
What better candidate for a fiery, disastrous and epic ending than a cashiered FBI agent with an alleged lack of candor and the distinct likelihood of criminal indictment, who looks like Alfred E. Newman?
CNN tried this same tactic in 2010, with Eliot “Client No. 9” Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York with an interest high-priced hookers, who, like Wile E. Coyote, promptly nosedived and blew up on his own carrier deck.
So now the hachimaki headband with its prestigious bright red meatball will be passed to the “candor-less,” former G-Man Andrew McCabe. I can hear the boys in talk-radio around the country gleefully sniggering and rubbing their palms together each time Kamikaze McCabe comes on the air: “General Quarters! General Quarters! Pilots man your planes!”
Meanwhile, does anyone doubt Zucker will enjoy the same outcome as Captain Okamura, who survived war after sending all his people and his organization into oblivion?
CNN’s slogan used to be “The Most Trusted Name in News.” Now it’s, “Banzai Mother Zucker!”