CNN’s excuse for banning Conway doesn’t add up

CNN says it kept Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway off the air Sunday, in part, because she lacks “credibility.” But when has that ever stopped the network before?

The move came after Conway defended President Trump’s restrictions on refugees and immigrants entering the country by noting President Barack Obama had also ordered a “ban” on Iraqi refugees, after two Iraqis who’d come to America were “behind the Bowling Green [Kentucky] massacre.”

No, there was no “massacre.” Conway later said she just misspoke — she’d meant to say “terrorists,” not “massacre.”

No matter: The left pounced, accusing her of trying to spread “fake news.” Then The New York Times reported that CNN said it nixed Conway in part because of “serious questions about her credibility.”

How rich. Just weeks ago, CNN itself spread the fake news about Russian operatives having “compromising personal and financial information” on Trump.

Nor did CNN see any reason to ban then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for falsely claiming the Benghazi attack was a response to an anti-Muslim video. And unlike in Conway’s case, that false story was driven by intentional efforts to avoid embarrassing Obama during the 2012 campaign.

OK, everyone knows CNN and Team Trump aren’t on the best of terms. The White House even threatened to stop letting top staffers appear on the network.

But when Trump’s folks did offer to send Conway — one of the president’s chief aides — CNN turned her down.

Let’s get real: Conway couldn’t possibly have expected anyone to think there was an unreported “massacre” in Kentucky. She simply misspoke. And she later linked to an ABC News story about “several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers” who may have been let into the country as refugees.

Two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists in Bowling Green, the story said, admitted they’d attacked US soldiers in Iraq, and the State Department then stopped processing Iraqi refugees for six months — “even for many who had heroically helped US forces.”

Conway’s defense of Trump, that is, was largely sound. Maybe that’s why CNN nixed her?