Here's the kind of FAKE NEWS that is the most pervasive in the media. It's the kind of news crafted to tell a political narrative irrespective of reality, as a means to tell the reader how and what to think about something. Washington Post headline...
Trump’s visit to Iraq prompts concerns about politicization of military
"Not by anybody that matters," was my knee-jerk reaction to reading the headline. I decided to go ahead and read the article to see if I was off base here. With persistent anti-Trumper Philip Rucker being in the byline, I wasn't encouraged. Turns out, I wasn't off base, either.
Here are the first four paragraphs of the piece:
A day after President Trump’s surprise visit to American forces in Iraq and Germany, questions persisted about whether he had jeopardized the political neutrality of the U.S. military by leveling partisan attacks and signing red “Make America Great Again” hats for the troops.
The president’s behavior — out of step with that of his predecessors — highlighted the struggle Pentagon leaders face in navigating an avowedly apolitical military through a hyperpartisan era in U.S. politics, particularly under a commander in chief unafraid of breaking with established norms.
The struggle is likely to intensify with the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign and
the departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who sought to prevent the military from becoming a pawn in the nation’s tribal politics, at times unsuccessfully, before his resignation last week.
Trump defended his conduct late Thursday. “CNN & others within the Fake News Universe were going wild about my signing MAGA hats for our military in Iraq and Germany,” he wrote on Twitter. “If these brave young people ask me to sign their hat, I will sign. Can you imagine my saying NO? We brought or gave NO hats as the Fake News first reported!”
If you haven't touched on the news story by the end of the fourth paragraph, you don't have a news story. At this point in the story, it's pretty clear the "concerns" about any politicization of the military are coming from his normal anti-Trump critics, and not by anyone who matters. Otherwise that would have been touched on in the second paragraph, or certainly the fourth.
See, what happened is, just as the headlines from everyone in the MSM who got the memo began trumpeting that Trump is the first president since 2002 (meaning, Obama and Bush) not to visit the troops during Christmas time, Trump's plane was landing in Iraq. Whoops. MSM embarrassed. Suddenly the MSM once again looks like a bunch of coordinated morons. They gotta go after him for something, anything. Those damn red hats are infuriating.
How many presidents since 2002 have visited the troops
in a war zone at Christmas time? Buehler? Buehler?
That's right, just the one - Trump. Bush visited troops at Walter Reed every Christmas, and Obama visited the troops at Marine Corps Base Hawaii every Christmas he was in office.
In 2017 Trump visited troops at Walter Reed at Christmastime, but it was on Dec 21st, not even remotely close enough to Christmas for the MSM to consider it to be a Christmastime visit. And a few days later, inching even closer to Christmastime, Trump had members of the Coast Guard over to his golf course in West Palm Beach, and later over to Mar a Lago for a visit and dinner. But they visited him, not the other way around. And besides, the Coast Guard isn't real troops, anyway. So that doesn't count.
NBC was so embarrassed that they
changed their headline from "Christmastime" to read,
"Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops on or before Christmas."
And they the've got this really lame editor's note that takes Bill Clinton's "depends on what your definition if
is, is" to a whole nother level.
NBC has determined that Christmastime ends at midnight on Christmas night. <snort>
The WaPo piece goes on to detail the concerns of three people, none of whom matter in the slightest, and all of whom are well-established Trump Haters. And then, because WaPo disdains Trump so much, later on in the piece they actually go after the troops who support Trump. Much in the same way that CNN's Brian Stelter tried in vain to get Trump kicked off Twitter for violating Twitter's Terms of Service, because, you know, Trump's a big ol' meany, WaPo tries to get the troops kicked out of the military for violating Defense Department Directive 1344.10, which prohibits active-duty service members from participating in political rallies or giving the appearance of endorsing a candidate.
The military has a 74% approval rating with the American public, and the military loves Trump. That's an unacceptable combination to the MSM. And something must be done about it.
To use a military paradigm, the MSM is going to save this country, even if they have to destroy it to do so.