KLAVAN: Hey Racist Hitler, Tone Down The Rhetoric!

There is no word that means “mind-bogglingly unaware of one’s own failings,” but acostesque might do the trick. To be a B talent on CNN means to be somewhere between X and Z anywhere else, so you’d think Jim Acosta would have the sense to keep a low profile. But no. The man’s entire journalistic method seems to be to call attention to himself for no apparent reason, almost as if he wanted people to see him making an utter fool of himself.

But this week’s acostesque shenanigans had at least the benefit of being illustrative of the despicable ways of the mainstream media and therefore of the Left in general.

At a rally in Houston this week, Donald Trump made the bold pronouncement that he was embracing the word “nationalist,” spelling out that he meant, as opposed to a globalist, he was concerned first and foremost with the good of the U.S.

Nothing if not unoriginal, Acosta went into the Left’s worn-to-tatters playbook by translating the word to mean “racist,” as the Left translates virtually any comment made by a conservative to mean “racist.”

“There is a concern,” Acosta began — and since we’re translating, that means, “I am trying to create a concern,” in Leftese. “There is a concern that you are sending coded language, or a dog whistle, to some Americans out there that what you really mean is that you’re a white nationalist.”

“I’ve never even heard that. I cannot imagine that,” the president responded, seeming genuinely surprised. He then went on to explain that by calling himself a nationalist he meant that he loved our country and felt we were treated unfairly in various ways by friends and foes alike.

So after creating the issue in his imagination, and being told his imagination was not in accord with reality, Acosta simply went on reporting live from his imagination, telling Anderson Cooper later that day that, because Trump was “demonizing immigrants” and Middle Easterners when he pledged to turn back the invading caravan headed our way from Honduras, “I don’t think it’s a stretch for a lot of Americans out there to wonder whether or not the president is secretly considering himself a white nationalist.”

And that’s the Left in a nutshell. Disagree with them and they tell you you are racist and when you explain they’re mistaken, they just go away and tell everyone else that you’re racist. Worse than racist. The King of Racists. In just the last few days, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, historian and frequent CNN commentator Bruce Bartlett, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Democrat Congressman Gregory Weeks, and Huffington Post reporter Laura Bassett have all compared Trump to Adolf Hitler. It’s as if they’d become characters in a Greg Gutfeld monologue.

That such rhetoric is ugly, cruel, stupid and morally disgusting never seems to occur to any of them.

All of which comes to mind at the moment because in the wake of this week’s bomb mailings to various left-wing figures, CNN, NBC, ABC, and The New York Times have all suggested that Trump’s hostile rhetoric was somehow to blame. “The President, and especially the White House press secretary, should understand their words matter,” said CNN’s Jeff Zucker. This was all before there was any way to know anything whatsoever about the bomber’s motives.

So let me make sure I have this right. The message we’re getting from the media is: Trump is racist. Trump is Hitler. Oh, and Trump should tone down the hostile rhetoric.

Knuckleheads. Who but our friends on the Left could be so wholly, completely and utterly acostesque?