Former WRGB news anchor makes false equivalency argument

The Capital District has its share of successful broadcasters who have gone from the local news broadcasts to nationwide acclaim. Chris Jansing, for example, spent several years as a trusted news anchor on WNYT-13 (back when she used her maiden name of Chris Kapsostacy). Joe Tessitore turned his ability to call a 3-minute sports anchor spot on WTEN-10 into a national run with ESPN as one of the top boxing analysts out there.

But the Capital Region has also – and I’m sorry to say this out loud – inflicted some clunkers onto the world. Chris Kapostacy’s replacement at WNYT-13 was a glorified news reader who demanded lots of blurry bokeh in her close-ups. You might know her. Kari Lake. Yes, THAT Kari Lake.

Now I introduce you (and forgive me for doing so) to Joe Pagliarulo. For a while, Pagliarulo was a news reader on WRGB-6, our local CBS affiliate. Well, at some point in time Pagliarulo eventually formed his own right-wing radio channel, and yesterday I caught his little bon mot post.

Mind you, this is in regards to the viral photo that Donald Trump shared of a pickup truck whose rear cab features a full-length decal of what appears to be President Biden, hog-tied and gagged and made to appear as if he was riding captive in the truck bed.

Apparently, according to Pagliarulo – this decal is considered free speech and acceptable criticism of the government. No, he said it, clear as day.

Okay, so what Joe Pagliarulo is saying here, amidst all the bloviating in the social media post, is that he’s okay with someone displaying a “hog tie and bind Joe Biden and toss him in the back of a truck” as an example of free speech. Okay, buddy, if that’s the stand you want to make …

That it’s okay for a private citizen to display or show some sort of violent imagery that depicts harm to a sitting President – that’s your battle line, Joe Pagliarulo. Got cha.

Your Honor, may I introduce Exhibit A to the jury.

What we have here is a private citizen who is displaying her personal displeasure with a sitting President by showing a crafted image of that President in torture.

Now let’s take Joe Pagliarulo’s social media post and add it here.

“Hey MAGAs, nobody thinks Donald Trump received the Ned Stark necktie from Kathy Griffin. Nobody thinks that picture was really him. We have the first amendment right to criticize government. That was not a threat. Someone re-posting it is not a threat. This narrative you’re trying to build is never going to work. I have an idea, instead of attacking Trump every day, and trying to get him off the ballot, beat him. If he’s inferior, and Biden is superior, simply beat him in November. Why don’t you just do that?”

Well … maybe it’s because Joe Biden already beat Donald Trump ONCE in a general election. Beat him rather handily, as I recall.

But the same rules of Trump showing someone endorsing violence against President Biden apparently aren’t the same rules that Kathy Griffin had to endure. She endured a tremendous amount of public backlash for that photo. She lost several acting and performance roles, and her long-time gig as Anderson Cooper’s New Year’s Eve foil on CNN got kiboshed as well. Even today, Kathy Griffin is still trying everything possible to repair her image and rebuild her career. And she may be at this goal for the rest of her life.

Yet at the same time, Donald Trump can endorse a photo showing President Biden shackled and bound and gagged and tossed in the back of a pickup truck, and that’s just political discourse.

Yeah, that don’t work for me, brother.

This is what happens when you give someone whose previous job was to read off a TelePrompTer the ability to go off-script.

And when it comes to Pagliarulo’s former station … I can see where the lineage lies.

Liz Bishop, you broke my heart.