In a uncommon editorial that may absolutely ship the media corridor displays into matches, CBS Night Information anchor Tony Dokoupil completely eviscerated the Democrats for coddling Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner (he hasn’t withdrawn but). However Dokoupil was solely half proper.
Watch the editorial, as aired on the CBS Night Information on Thursday, July ninth, 2026:
WATCH: CBS’s @tonydokoupil SAVAGES the Democrats’ embrace of Graham Platner, regardless of the various apparent purple flags that emerged all through the marketing campaign. On the nostril for certain, however Tony D missed a spot: the media coddled Platner as effectively. The media corridor displays will rage nonetheless.… pic.twitter.com/452IZIebwY
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 9, 2026
TONY DOKOUPIL: The Huge Query tonight is why did so many within the Democratic Occasion, the social gathering of Black Lives Matter and Consider Ladies, proceed to see Graham Platner as a future star? Regardless of scandal after scandal that appeared to undermine these ideas and extra? Regardless of his outdated Reddit feedback about, amongst different issues, why Platner thinks black individuals do not tip? Regardless of his chest tattoo with a Nazi historical past? And regardless of the accusations of abuse towards ladies? By means of all of that and extra, Platner downplayed or denied the claims and was defended by the social gathering in a few of its greatest voices.
CHRIS Van HOLLEN: I do consider individuals ought to have second possibilities.
CHRIS MURPHY: If it is a character election, the incumbent has lots to reply for as effectively.
BERNIE SANDERS: I’ll do every thing I can to be sure that Graham Platner is the following senator from the State of Maine.
DOKOUPIL: So what’s behind all that assist for him till now? Might it merely be that he was profitable? That he had blown out the sitting governor within the Democratic major? It certain appeared just like the Democrats’ finest likelihood to beat Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins. In political circles, the reply, it seems, was sure. Many Democrats knew Platner had character points. The speculation, from Daniel Moraff, the political strategist who plucked Platner from obscurity, and made him right into a star, was that the voters would not care. That they needed, quote, “actual individuals who have lived actual lives.”
DANIEL MORAFF: I feel we would like individuals who did not run for pupil council, proper? We wish individuals who haven’t been spending their total lives planning their ascent to political energy.
DOKOUPIL: However after Platner was accused of rape this week, it turned out that idea had its limits. Character does matter. Platner denied the accusation, however for some Democrats, he’d dedicated the one offense no political social gathering can tolerate. He began to appear like a loser.
Dokoupil spared no phrases as he tears by way of Democrat leaders keen to look previous Platner’s rows of purple flags in pursuit of energy. He’s additionally proper that Democrats solely ditched Platner as soon as it turned obvious that he may lose to longtime incumbent Susan Collins. The most recent allegations offered the offramp, and the rejection cascade ensued.
However what’s misplaced in all of this, and the place Dokoupil falls quick, is that the Elitist Media are simply as culpable of the identical willful omissions. The media seemed the opposite method on the Totenkopf tattoo, reluctantly coated the sexting scandal, and joined The New York Instances in making conservative activist Lyndsey Fifield the main focus of that specific story- a modified “catch and kill.”
The media are simply as responsible of enabling Platner as the remainder of the left. That important a part of the story was lacking from an in any other case trenchant and much-needed editorial.
