CNN might be the official sock-puppet media outlet of the far left, but you gotta admit that the silly "news" channel is often funny as hell — unintentionally so, of course.

Such was the case on Saturday’s edition of "The Chris Wallace Show," when National Review contributor and Manhattan Institute President Reihan Salam hooked up with The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg to do battle with New York Times podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro and fellow podcaster Kara Swisher. The topic: the hypocritical-as-hell Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement and recently-resigned former Harvard President Claudine Gay. 

Wallace, being Wallace, kicked off the festivities with a charged and loaded question:

Reihan, has in effect, the country moved on from the so-called racial reckoning we were all talking about, after the murder of George Floyd? 

Salam responded by pointing out the left's hypocrisy — and selective outrage —over DEI.

I think there's a broad sense that that racial reckoning involved smuggling in certain really contentious, ideological ideas that weren't ultimately about diversity but rather were about imposing ideological uniformity. 

When you’re looking at DEI bureaucracies, what really is noxious about them is that they actually don't respect all sorts of diversity, including viewpoint diversity, including the fact that, look, in some cases, you have groups that are over-represented, and that can be okay. 

You know, the point that J.D. Vance was making about the Dallas Mavericks is that it can be good and healthy and reasonable in some domains to have—

Yup, Garcia-Navarro interrupted Salam, mid-sentence, with this brilliant comment: "Ridiculo, ridiculo." 

"What she said," added an equally brilliant Swisher.

Salam fired back:

You can say it's ridiculous, you can make that assertion, but fundamentally the fact that, you know, I am one second-generation Asian-American on a panel of four, I am massively, massively over-represented, but I think it’s reasonable to say you’re going to judge people based on their merits, and when you’re looking at organizations that count that matter—

He was again cut off by Garcia-Navarro:  "But this, excuse me, excuse me—" 

This is the burden and I can't tell you how infuriating I find it. This is the burden that always comes with representation. 

The idea is that because you are a person of color, suddenly it is -- you are only there because it is some noblesse oblige, it is because some white guilt put you there, because there was some DEI initiative, and you can't win either way you look at it. 

I mean, what infuriates me is you look at the whole Claudine Gay thing and everyone's talking about DEI. This woman cannot win or lose. Either— if she is there – 

"I'm happy to talk about Claudine Gay, please," Salam interjected.

"Let me finish," Garcia-Navarro insisted. 

If she’s there, it is because of DEI, they put her there because she is black. If she loses and they kick her out, it’s because she was never good enough to be there in the beginning and she was— you can't win in this situation.

No, she was "kicked out" because of her antisemitic comments and serial plagiarism, you disingenuous fool. 

Our discussion of DEI on The Chris Wallace Show. pic.twitter.com/3OqZXs5Xr7

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) January 6, 2024

Goldberg tried to jump in: "Yeah, but—" But Garcia-Navarro ridiculously added: "And it is infuriating as a person of color to constantly have this cudgel put on our heads." 

Goldberg finally got a word in, edgewise:

I get the argument that you can't win but you also can't have it both ways. You can't celebrate and tout that someone was hired and it’s a wonderful thing to expand diversity. Harvard went full tilt talking about how great it was to hire the first black woman and then say all of a sudden when she’s caught—

Ah, but Garcia-Navarro was not going to let him finish that sentence, choosing to instead up the black ante:

The first black person, it wasn’t even the first black woman, it was the first black person—

Goldberg was finally able to make his point — mostly, anyway.

Okay, I don’t care. The point is, is that she got caught obviously plagiarizing and that is — those are the facts that — this massive—

Garcia-Navarro cut him off with a nonsensical comment: "It was ideological, very well-funded—" 

Finally, Goldberg for the win:

The motives of the attack don't change the fact she plagiarized.

And so it went — excruciatingly so.

The Bottom Line

Attempting to have a civil, intelligence debate with a leftist is not dissimilar to trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Try as you might, they both slip away — neither of them giving a darn.