As Far as Partisans in the Media Are Concerned... Trump Can't Win
And the same is true for most Democrats
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If Democrats were ventriloquists, journalists would be the dummies sitting on their laps.
Harsh? Sure, but well deserved.
Democrats were rooting for the war in Iran to go south about 10 seconds after the first U.S. missiles hit their targets. Maybe sooner. Ditto for journalists.
An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that runs under the headline, “On Iran, Is only Bad News Fit to Print?,” nails it:
“Journalists have a right and a duty to report bad news and to question Pollyannaish reports from the U.S. government. But many seem to be going beyond that and rooting for America to lose—against an enemy that is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror, that has killed thousands of unarmed protesters, and that stockpiled thousands of ballistic missiles while seeking nuclear weapons, which its rulers promised to use against the U.S. and Israel.”
The author of those words is not some Trump loyalist wearing a bright red hat. The column is by Mark Penn, who was an advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton, and by Andrew Stein, a former New York City Council President — a Democrat, if that even needs to be said.
They go on to say that, “Largely absent are even the most basic stories analyzing Iran’s losses and the fate of their supposed leadership. Why? What seems to be driving the coverage is reportorial partisanship and the Democrats’ determination to oppose this president no matter what he does.”
Those last few words sum it up: Democrats hate Donald Trump and so they are determined to oppose him “no matter what he does.” And their allies in the media also loathe him so they put the worst spin possible on whatever he does.
But let’s pretend President Trump did something very different regarding Iran. Let’s say he concluded, just as Democrats and so many liberal journalists have concluded, that there was no imminent threat to the United States and that no action against Iran was warranted.
Now, let’s assume one more thing: That Mr. Trump’s inaction resulted in tragedy. A few more words from a Democrat, this time from prominent New York lawyer David Boies, in another WSJ column.
“If he [Trump] hadn’t acted,” Boies writes, “his successor would have been left with an even more dangerous choice than his predecessors left him. Three or four years from now, the Iranian missiles now hitting Iran’s neighbors could be hitting Berlin or London, perhaps even New York or Washington—perhaps with a nuclear device or at least a dirty bomb.”
Imagine that — a nuclear bomb hitting Europe or the United States. Or maybe a dirty bomb that made its way into a European city or into New York or Washington or Los Angeles or a hundred other U.S. cities big and small in a suitcase or a carry-on bag. The result would be devastating.
And who do you think Democrats and the little dummies sitting on their laps would blame for that? You don’t have to be Captain Obvious to know the answer.
So let’s review: Donald Trump gets blamed for starting this war and he’d get blame for not starting it if his inaction ended badly.
Democrats and their PR arm in the media figure it this way: Heads they win, tails Trump loses.
Except at least half the country doesn’t trust either of them.