Media More Interested in Using Iran Situation to Hurt Trump Than to Accurately Report News
by Erick Erickson: While the news media continues to lecture Americans that truth matters, there are apples that are not bananas, and Trump voters like to be lied to, the media is continuing its relentless campaign to turn the Iran situation into a smear campaign against the Trump Administration.
It started with the press, including the New York Times, LA Times, and various TV outlets, lying about Vice President Pence. The Vice President accurately noted that General Qassem Suleimani orchestrated the travel of ten of the 9/11 hijackers through Iran to Afghanistan to help them keep a low profile. The 9/11 Commission report actually states that Iran did this, though it did not name Qassem Suleimani directly. There is no dispute that Suleimani had to be the one authorizing it.
The media took the 9/11 Commission report’s failure to name Suleimani directly as a chance to say the Vice President was lying. He was not. He got it right. The media got it wrong — badly wrong. Pages 240 and 241 of the 9/11 Commission report describe how the hijackers went back and forth through Iran and did not have to get their passports stamped to avoid detection.
CNN then invented a dire warning to scare Americans that the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress that Americans should prepare for an imminent attack from Iran. That was not true, and CNN had to selectively quote the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to make it so.
CNN also, having bashed the President for years for not believing the intelligence community, decided it could not believe the intelligence community and would need to see the classified information itself before believing the administration.
If that wasn’t enough, CNN helpfully scared the mess out of any American listening by letting on an “analyst” who claimed all Americans are now targets of Iran.
You will recall that one of the justifications for killing Suleimani is that he was orchestrating an imminent attack on the United States in some way. The attack planning was so significant that he was going to have to get the Ayatollah’s direct permission. The New York Times reported that and, through its sourcing, has probably put human intelligence at risk. There are not too many who would have known Suleimani had to get direct permission and now someone in the intelligence community made sure the Iranians would know it by way of the New York Times.
But the Times went on from there, no doubt with the same sources, to claim the intelligence community had lots of skepticism about the claims. One of the New York Times reporters tweeted that it was likely the President did this to distract from impeachment. Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Esper, and the Joint Chiefs have all pushed back hard against theNew York Times.
This is, by the way, the same New York Times that tried to blame George W. Bush for ignoring obscure warning signs about the 9/11 attacks. The warning signs from Iran were even less obscure. Undoubtedly had the Iranians pulled off their attack, the New York Times would be attacking President Trump for ignoring warning signs.
The same New York Times blasted Mike Pompeo for showing a video of a large crowd gathered at 4 am in Iraq to celebrate the death of Suleimani. First, they claimed it could not be verified. Then, once it was confirmed, claimed the pro-Suleimani crowd in the middle of the day was more substantial, and so, therefore, Mike Pompeo was pushing fake news.
Over the past seventy-two hours, the media has relied on Obama era foreign policy and national security sources, some of them still embedded in the intelligence community and government, to provide them every opportunity to turn the attack against Suleimani into a partisan tool. It would not surprise me if the whistleblower against the President, now back at the CIA, is one of the sources to cast down on his colleagues.
The media, by Sunday, was running Iranian propaganda without even questioning it. There were reports of the Iraqi Prime Minister demanding American withdrawal from Iraq. That is not actually what happened. The New York Times claimed Iraq’s Parliament “voted to oust US troops” when, in fact, Parliament conducted a show vote on getting a time table for withdrawal prepared.
Too many members of the press, their national security analysts, and the people they all listen to come from the Obama Administration and are emotionally invested in the mythology of that administration. Consequently, they’ll push a viral tweet that distorts reality by claiming the military opposed the President’s decision to go after Suleimani, and they’ll totally ignore former Secretary of State John Kerry’s previous acknowledgment that Iran would use the billions Obama sent them to fund terrorism.
The media is not interested in reporting accurately or fairly on Iran and Iraq. They just want to help the Democrats beat Trump. If that means siding with a murderous regime like Iran, they’ll go back to claiming Trump is running concentration camps at the border to justify it. Just don’t ask them about China.
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Erick Erickson is editor of The Resurgent and host of the Erick Erickson Show on WSB Radio. He has been both a CNN and Fox News contributor and appears regularly on NBC News’ Meet the Press and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Erick is a lawyer by training and is working on a degree in theology.
Tags: Erick Erickson, The Resurgent, Media More Interested, Using Iran Situation, to Hurt Trump, Than to Accurately, Report News To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
It started with the press, including the New York Times, LA Times, and various TV outlets, lying about Vice President Pence. The Vice President accurately noted that General Qassem Suleimani orchestrated the travel of ten of the 9/11 hijackers through Iran to Afghanistan to help them keep a low profile. The 9/11 Commission report actually states that Iran did this, though it did not name Qassem Suleimani directly. There is no dispute that Suleimani had to be the one authorizing it.
The media took the 9/11 Commission report’s failure to name Suleimani directly as a chance to say the Vice President was lying. He was not. He got it right. The media got it wrong — badly wrong. Pages 240 and 241 of the 9/11 Commission report describe how the hijackers went back and forth through Iran and did not have to get their passports stamped to avoid detection.
CNN then invented a dire warning to scare Americans that the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress that Americans should prepare for an imminent attack from Iran. That was not true, and CNN had to selectively quote the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to make it so.
CNN also, having bashed the President for years for not believing the intelligence community, decided it could not believe the intelligence community and would need to see the classified information itself before believing the administration.
If that wasn’t enough, CNN helpfully scared the mess out of any American listening by letting on an “analyst” who claimed all Americans are now targets of Iran.
You will recall that one of the justifications for killing Suleimani is that he was orchestrating an imminent attack on the United States in some way. The attack planning was so significant that he was going to have to get the Ayatollah’s direct permission. The New York Times reported that and, through its sourcing, has probably put human intelligence at risk. There are not too many who would have known Suleimani had to get direct permission and now someone in the intelligence community made sure the Iranians would know it by way of the New York Times.
But the Times went on from there, no doubt with the same sources, to claim the intelligence community had lots of skepticism about the claims. One of the New York Times reporters tweeted that it was likely the President did this to distract from impeachment. Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Esper, and the Joint Chiefs have all pushed back hard against the
This is, by the way, the same New York Times that tried to blame George W. Bush for ignoring obscure warning signs about the 9/11 attacks. The warning signs from Iran were even less obscure. Undoubtedly had the Iranians pulled off their attack, the New York Times would be attacking President Trump for ignoring warning signs.
The same New York Times blasted Mike Pompeo for showing a video of a large crowd gathered at 4 am in Iraq to celebrate the death of Suleimani. First, they claimed it could not be verified. Then, once it was confirmed, claimed the pro-Suleimani crowd in the middle of the day was more substantial, and so, therefore, Mike Pompeo was pushing fake news.
Over the past seventy-two hours, the media has relied on Obama era foreign policy and national security sources, some of them still embedded in the intelligence community and government, to provide them every opportunity to turn the attack against Suleimani into a partisan tool. It would not surprise me if the whistleblower against the President, now back at the CIA, is one of the sources to cast down on his colleagues.
The media, by Sunday, was running Iranian propaganda without even questioning it. There were reports of the Iraqi Prime Minister demanding American withdrawal from Iraq. That is not actually what happened. The New York Times claimed Iraq’s Parliament “voted to oust US troops” when, in fact, Parliament conducted a show vote on getting a time table for withdrawal prepared.
Too many members of the press, their national security analysts, and the people they all listen to come from the Obama Administration and are emotionally invested in the mythology of that administration. Consequently, they’ll push a viral tweet that distorts reality by claiming the military opposed the President’s decision to go after Suleimani, and they’ll totally ignore former Secretary of State John Kerry’s previous acknowledgment that Iran would use the billions Obama sent them to fund terrorism.
The media is not interested in reporting accurately or fairly on Iran and Iraq. They just want to help the Democrats beat Trump. If that means siding with a murderous regime like Iran, they’ll go back to claiming Trump is running concentration camps at the border to justify it. Just don’t ask them about China.
-------------------
Erick Erickson is editor of The Resurgent and host of the Erick Erickson Show on WSB Radio. He has been both a CNN and Fox News contributor and appears regularly on NBC News’ Meet the Press and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Erick is a lawyer by training and is working on a degree in theology.
Tags: Erick Erickson, The Resurgent, Media More Interested, Using Iran Situation, to Hurt Trump, Than to Accurately, Report News To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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