OPINION
By SILVO CANTO, JR.
They say, when life give you lemons, make lemonade.
The phrase is intended to inspire optimism or crank up a positive attitude in the face of adversity.
Well, my take on that expression is when life gives you a quote from CNN commentator Don Lemmon, just look the other way or turn off the TV like a lot of other viewers do.
On Thursday, July 14, Lemon warned journalists to not give both sides equal treatment and hold Republicans to a tougher standard over the “extremism” within their party.
As Kristine Parks of Fox News pointed out: “The primetime host tied the GOP to the threat of ‘growing extremism’ on the right. He warned journalists to not give a ‘false equivalence’ to both sides, and instead acknowledge Republicans were endangering America.”
“We sit around and we talk about these things and we want to give this false equivalence to Democrats and Republicans. That is not where we are right now. Republicans are doing something that is very dangerous to our society and we have to acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that, as Americans, we must acknowledge that as journalists because if we don’t, we are not doing our jobs,” Lemon said.
Of course, everyone is entitled to his opinion. But at the same time, is anyone surprised by what Lemon said?
In the first place, this is Lemon trying to get a headline. Unfortunately — and I’m guilty of this — we react to his nonsense. We are talking about him, are we not? He probably gets a larger audience when we talk about him.
And in the second place, this is exactly what Lemon has been doing for years. His show is nothing but Republican bashing, which is why most serious Republicans avoided it like a plague.
My advice: Just turn off the TV, get some real lemons and make some lemonade. You will feel a lot better.
SILVIO CANTO, JR. is a Cuban-born U.S. citizen who teaches English at a north Texas college. He is the author of the book “Cubanos in Wisconsin” and has a daily online radio program and blog dealing with U.S. and Latin American politics, as well as sports and historic events, and is a regular contributor to American Thinker.