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It’s not particularly surprising that Scott Jennings eviscerated, albeit politely, a fellow panelist on CNN recently. That’s something the conservative commentator does like most people brush their teeth: it’s just another daily routine.
What was surprising was that Jennings’ target du jour was the son of two of the world’s most famous movie stars. And that Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have reportedly roared at CNN in defense of their son, Dylan Douglas.
Dylan Douglas, 25, is the host of a weekly radio show called “Young American” on Sirius XM. On his website, he describes himself as “an actor, producer, and media personality” with a history degree from Brown University and a “passion for human storytelling.”
Storytelling is great. But that’s not the skillset needed when going up against a flamethrower like Jennings, who is currently promoting his new book “A Revolution of Common Sense” and seems to run on higher octane than most everyone he goes up against on CNN.
As Meghan McCain later said, it was painful to watch, even though to me, it seemed like Jennings was holding back, just a bit, as the two men argued about who was responsible for the recent government shutdown.
But, according to celebrity reporter Rob Shuter, the exchange made Douglas’s famous parents angry, to the point where they have vowed to never go on CNN again.
“They genuinely believe the producers set Dylan up — invited him on for a soft conversation and then fed him to a veteran political pit bull," Shuter wrote on his Substack.
His sources are anonymous, so we can take this with a grain of salt. And the younger Douglas seems like a well-meaning person — he has said that he likes politics but doesn’t especially like politicians, and wants his Sirius XM show to explore how politics got so divisive.
But it’s interesting that this story erupted soon after The Atlantic published an article about how helicopter parents are literally going to college with their children, so invested are they in their kids’ lives. There’s a term to describe them: “trailing parents.” They rent apartments near the child’s college so they can still see them frequently, bring over soup and lozenges if they’re sick. One mother said she wanted to be nearby to help fix her daughter’s hair on special occasions. Another parent called the child’s professor to complain about a grade.
Given this sort of behavior, which according to The Atlantic writer, Russell Shaw, is more common than we’d want to think, the reports about Dylan Douglas’s parents aren’t so far-fetched. For the rest of us, the moral is this: Spar with Scott Jennings at your own risk.
The latest CBS rumor
In her conversation with Scott Jennings on her podcast “Citizen Cain,” Meghan McCain asked Jennings about rumors that he’s in talks with Bari Weiss to go to CBS.
While saying that he just renewed his contract with CNN, Jennings was ambiguous at best, telling McCain that he’s a huge fan of Weiss, and “Anytime she wants to have a chat, I’m always going to show up for it.”
The idea that Weiss is fishing for personalities who are popular on the right is intriguing. (The recruitment of Bret Baier, under contract to Fox News until the end of 2028, is another rumor that’s been shut down.) And yet, a critical piece published about Weiss last week in The New Republic called Weiss boring and said she wants to turn CBS into “CNN, but somehow worse.”
It’s just been two months since she joined CBS. Give her time.
Wisdom from Robert P. George
Robert P. George is one of the most notable conservatives in academia, having spent 40 years at Princeton University espousing religious and conservative principles while nurturing friendships across the aisle (and occasionally finding time to write for the Deseret News).
The Chronicle of Higher Education paid him homage last week in a remarkable feature that acknowledged in the headline that “progressive orthodoxy” is weakening, and agreed with George that a “vibe shift” is underway on college campuses. In the conversation, one of the writers told George that conservative scholars are saying this is “the best hiring environment in their lifetimes.”
In academia, as in the media, it’s suddenly fashionable to have conservative viewpoints represented.
But George, who the authors depict as a “genial antidote” to the sort of conservatism represented by Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, warned that ideological silos are still a danger even when conservatives are represented.
“We know this because we see it in broader society. Half the country only watches Fox News. If they read a newspaper editorial page, it’s The Wall Street Journal. If they read a magazine, it’s National Review. The other half only watches MSNBC or CNN. If they read an opinion page, it’s The New York Times. If they read a magazine, it’s The Nation.
“I don’t want that for universities. I say this to university administrators all over the country: Do not create a playpen on your campus for conservatives. That’s not the way to enhance viewpoint diversity. If you’ve corralled all your conservative faculty members in one spot, that’s not doing much for your students or for the cause of education.”
In the interview, George also talks about his “beloved friend” Cornel West, with whom he published “Truth Matters” earlier this year. There’s a whole sermon in his use of that one word, “beloved.”
How many fiercely partisan Americans have a close friend, who is their ideological opposite, that they can call “beloved”?
The number of people who report having cut off relationships over politics suggests not nearly enough.
Recommended Reading
Valerie Hudson wants to know why the Trump administration is still pursuing a ban on state regulation of artificial intelligence, despite opposition by both Democrats and Republicans, and the impressive work on this front by states like Utah.
“There has been almost no action by Congress on federal-level AI regulation, and that situation has forced the states to act in its stead to protect their citizens. Now the administration is proposing to scrap state laws and at some unspecified point in the future provide some basic protections for citizens. It’s almost as if citizens were an afterthought to the much more important goal of protecting AI companies.”
Amid handwringing about “the Great Feminization” and the “mankeeping” born of “patriarchy,” we have a choice, Meagan Kohler writes: we can choose not to participate in the gender wars.
“... To become a combatant in the gender war means elevating the status of one’s own sex above mutually beneficial cooperation. It means losing sight of a world in which men’s and women’s ‘modes of interaction’ are balanced and integrated — and in which we are all better off for it."
Jay Evensen will put your holiday shopping woes in perspective with his seasonal time-travel game in which he “shops” from newspapers or catalogues of a year long gone.
“This year, I have chosen 1925, exactly 100 years ago. For curiosity’s sake, a simple inflation calculator tells me $1 in 2025 would be worth 5 cents in 1925, or $1 then would be $20 today. But we’re not worrying about that. It will suffice to know you are filthy rich in 1925, no matter how little you think you earn.”
Shopping 100 years ago provides a Christmas lesson
End Notes
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is often intentionally funny, but every now and then he is unintentionally funny, too.
This was the case when he put out a serious news release last week that said “Governor Newsom Proclaims Thanksgiving Day,” as if the holiday was something he just invented.
I look forward to him proclaiming Christmas Day, too.