New Yorker contributor and CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin was caught masturbating during a video conference with his New Yorker colleagues, and because he’s a Trump hater, the corrupt media are pulling out all the stops to defend and reinstate him.

From what I can glean from what we know, New Yorker staffers were engaged in some kind of left-wing cosplay gaming out scenarios where the 2020 presidential election ends up being contested. Toobin was assigned to represent the courts. During this call, Toobin was caught waxing the candle, and his coworker saw it.  And I do mean “it.”

The following is just my opinion of how I’m seeing things — just a guess: Toobin’s excuse appears to be that he had two video calls going at the same time. One was some kind of sex call. So he was boxing the one-eyed champ for the sex call and didn’t know his New Yorker colleagues could see him.

Toobin has apologized for his behavior. Claims it was all an accident. And now, many in the elite media are trying to make it sound as though we’re all being too hard on little Jeffrey (no pun intended).

Vox’s German Lopez tweeted, “Not sure someone getting caught doing something almost everyone does should be a national story.”

He later deleted the tweet, but I can think of all kinds of things we all do that would be inappropriate to do on a work call — take a shower, pick our teeth, use the toilet, watch Basic Instinct, play air guitar…

The Daily News believes the scandal around Toobin exposes a problem with everyone else, not Toobin.

You see, we’re all so prurient and insecure when it comes to cuffing the carrot, we must destroy this poor man, Jeffrey Toobin, to assuage our own shame:

So let’s suppose Jeffrey Toobin had been caught on camera having sex with a partner instead of touching himself. Would he be the most mocked man in the United States right now?

Of course not. And, putting aside Toobin’s history of bad sexual judgment, that’s what this pseudo-scandal is really about: our collective unease with masturbation. We Americans love to talk — and talk, and talk — about sex. But there’s one topic that remains taboo, and Toobin is paying the price for it.

The left-wing BuzzFeed naturally rushed to Toobin’s defense:

Haven’t we all done something on a work call that, in normal circumstances, we’d never do during a meeting? Let he without sin cast the first stone; the benefit of working from home is in the comfort to do whatever you want. Endless snacks without judgment, cigarette breaks at your leisure, Real Housewives on all goddamn day.

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn CNNLOL is very upset they’ve lost Toobin, at least for now:

Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst and a renowned reporter for The New Yorker, has been sidelined at a pivotal moment in the run-up to the presidential election.

The reason: He exposed himself during a Zoom call with colleagues in what he says was an accident.

[…]

Ordinarily Toobin would be busy covering a controversial Supreme Court confirmation and an election that could end up being challenged on legal grounds.

Unlike the New Yorker, CNN has not even suspended Toobin. They just gave him the time off he requested to work on himself — if you’ll pardon the expression.

This is not at all surprising. Nor would it be the first time CNNLOL kept on someone who was let go by the New Yorker for sexual misconduct. Remember Ryan Lizza?

A Toronto Star columnist is beside himself and is actually attacking Toobin’s colleagues, the people Toobin exposed himself to:

Huh? The simulation continued? Not one of his lily-livered colleagues who need 10,000 words to get to the point told the poor bastard they had just witnessed him choking the chicken? Nobody had the decency to text: “Ah, dude? This isn’t a porno! Put it away!”

A National Review columnist is all… “Oh, Jeffrey Toobin — let him among us with a free hand cast the first stone,” and once again, we’re the problem, not the guy caught badgering the witness in front of his colleagues:

But the controversy over Toobin has nothing to do with the quality of his work and relatively little to do with his having gone unintentionally public with his private weasel-management struggles. It has to do with the all-important ritual that is now at the center of our political discourse: hating together.

Toobin is today’s hate object because he presented himself and because the manner in which he presented himself offers an even-greater-than-usual opportunity for ritualized humiliation.

The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf tweeted, “When Occam’s Razor suggests someone humiliated himself through a combo of technological error, pandemic circumstances, bad judgment, & bad luck, it seems like we should react w/ empathy, politeness, & forgiveness, as we would want to be treated, rather than punitive mockery.”

Author Anne Lamott: “Nobody—NOBODY—deserves the level of humiliation that Jeffrey Toobin is being subjected to. I don’t even think Trump does, although I hope that he and his kids all do prison time.”

I think we can all agree Toobin did not deliberately expose himself while shaking hands with Mr. Winky during a work-related Zoom call in the same way a flasher or exhibitionist would.

But so what?

It doesn’t matter.

He’s still windsurfing on Mt. Baldy during work hours. He’s liquidating the inventory with his colleagues’ faces right there on his computer screen. And Toobin’s carelessness, his recklessness, his unwillingness to control himself caused distress for his colleagues and embarrassment to his employer.

Listen, an honest mistake is standing up during a work call and realizing your fly is open.

This wasn’t a “mistake.” Toobin didn’t accidentally buff the vampire slayer during a work call. What he did do, what he chose to do, was audition his hand puppet during a work call, which is a wildly reckless and irresponsible thing to do.

Gee, officer, I didn’t mean to kill all those people while driving on the wrong side of the road. I was just fooling around. It was an accident.

Okay, it was an accident… But just as it is reckless and irresponsible to drive on the wrong side of the road, it is reckless and irresponsible to make the bald man cry during a conference call with your work colleagues.

When you engage in reckless and irresponsible behavior, you are opening the door for terrible things to happen, and you must be held responsible for that.

Finally, and I think this is an important point no one’s talking about…

How do you think the women on this particular conference call feel? I’m not talking about the Eek, a mouse! moment; I’m talking about knowing Toobin was masturbating with your live image up on his computer screen.

How would that make you feel?

How would it make you feel if that was your daughter or wife?

I know I’d want to knock his block off.

I’m not here to call for Toobin’s firing. But I know I’d be fired for such a thing.

I also know that if Toobin were Sean Hannity or Donald Trump or anyone on the right, all the oh-so lofty principles expressed above would go right out the window. Because there are no principles at work here. Wagon-circling the indefensible is not principled, and you never saw me defending Bill O’Reilly or Roger Ailes.

As far as the mockery, I believe in shame. Shame is a good thing in a circumstance like this one. Society is better off and so are individuals if they fear being shamed for something like this.

The sad truth is that if you are not a member of America’s degenerate elite, you are a second-class citizen in this country who will lose your job for wearing an Obama mask. But if you are a member of the elite, you are allowed to lie, commit violence, and even get caught charming the cobra during a work meeting, and the fault and shame will all be laid at the feet of those appalled by a grown man who would do something so reckless and, yes, sick.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.