![\"CC](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/printer.jpg\")
\nCC photo credit – Frank Hamilton for Baltimore City Paper<\/p>\n
\nCC photo credit – Frank Hamilton for Baltimore City Paper<\/p>\n
Of media gods and generals<\/i><\/p>\n
As part of a new ploy in its ongoing conflict with President Trump, the mostly New York City-based news media now seems to be shifting focus to a tactic of trying to drive a wedge between Trump and the military.<\/p>\n
In an interview this week with CNN, which has rippled like an outrage stone dropped in the hysteria pond, retired Admiral William McRaven reasserted claims that Trump was a threat to democracy.<\/p>\n
“I stand by my comment that the President’s attack on the media is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime,” McRaven said, “When you undermine the people’s right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Among those jumping in to cover McRaven’s six o’clock has been retired General Stanley McChrystal. Both are former commanders of the Joint Special Operations Command. McChrystal’s comments bear some minor irony, for those keeping score, because of him being fired by President Obama for the general’s critical riffs about the Obama administration during a 2010 Rolling Stone<\/i> interview.<\/p>\n
Two things would seem to be a problem with giving too much credence to the comments of McRaven and McChrystal. The first is the logical fallacy of false authority. Although both of the former flag officers have shown themselves to be very good at the lethal business of military skills, their opinion of the news media has no more value than yours, mine, or the guy who sells papers from a kiosk on 42nd Street.<\/p>\n
Another thing to be skeptical of is the news media’s implied assumption that flag-rank military officers are somehow completely neutral when it comes to politics. This is something anybody who has reached the level of O-6 would probably suggest is right up there with an abiding belief in leprechauns. It might be pointed out, for example, that McRaven is likely to have been on a Hillary Clinton short list of those to be appointed to political high office had she been elected.<\/p>\n
It’s probably fair to say that the original framers of the Constitution, Franklin and Jefferson most noteworthy among them, had a fairly clear-eyed view of how the press was supposed to work under the 1st Amendment. The country, even then, had its share of saints and scoundrels trying to scribble out a living using the craft of journalism.<\/p>\n
It seems to me if the news media feels threatened now, which it does, the wounds it claims to have suffered, more often than not, have been self-inflicted. Somehow, the current mainstream media has adopted a posture that Trump is the enemy; anything to cause harm to his administration should be pursued by any means necessary, and any journalist who disagrees is to be considered a pariah. All of which should set off alarm bells for those thoughtful enough to want a press tasked with fairness and objectivity. In short, one doing its job.<\/p>\n
And despite what they might want everyone to believe, both the country and a free press can survive if the New York Times<\/i> folds, or CNN<\/i> winks out, or owner Jeff Bezos– who hates Donald Trump– decides to shut down the Washington Post<\/i> tomorrow.<\/p>\n