March 14, 2026

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Has the Media Been Responsible for America Losing Wars?

The White House statement goes into specifics to answer the charges, closing by saying that “No amount of CNN hackery will change that.”

In short? Unlike 1968 and Walter Cronkite’s attack on LBJ’s Vietnam policy, President Trump is not sitting back and allowing today’s media – CNN in this case – to paint its own anti-media picture of the Trump Iran/Middle East policy.

Time has moved on. As is said often enough in this corner: Stay tuned.

What unfolds between the media and the Trump administration when it comes to the coverage of American policy in Iran and the larger Middle East remains to be seen.

In his 1977 book, It Didn’t Start with Watergate, Victor Lasky wrote:

By the time Lyndon Johnson left office, his administration was under bitter attack by the media and its subsidiary organizations. Thus in 1968 the journalism society Sigma Delta Chi had this to say: “The Credibility Gap, which has reached awesome proportions under the Johnson Administration, continued to be a grave handicap. Secrecy, lies, half-truths, deception—this was the daily fare.”

In turn there were those who felt that the press had its own credibility problems. Douglas Cater, special assistant to President Johnson, suggested that too often newsmen presumed an expertise they quite obviously didn’t have.

“I’m concerned about the little demigods of TV who make an instant analysis of complicated events,” said Cater. “There should be bounds on what TV men do, so much of which is delivered with flippant abandon.”

Cater, of course, was and is of the liberal persuasion. His remarks concerning “instant analysis” were generally overlooked at the time. A year or so later Vice President Spiro Agnew used the same phrase in condemning television coverage of presidential speeches—and all hell broke loose. The reaction ran true to form. The liberals claimed the remarks augured—in the words of the International Press Institute in Zürich—“the most serious threat to the freedom of information in the Western world.” And commentators like Walter Cronkite agreed.

But down in Texas the former President wondered out loud whether “Ted” Agnew had been politic in saying what he did. It wasn’t that Citizen Johnson disagreed with what was said. Shortly after the 1968 election he had sought to warn the Vice President-elect about the antagonistic nature of the media.

“Young man,” he had told Agnew, “we have in this country two big television networks, NBC and CBS. We have two news magazines, Newsweek and Time. We have two wire services, AP and UPI. We have two pollsters, Gallup and Harris. We have two big newspapers—the Washington Post and The New York Times. They’re all so damned big they think they own the country. But, young man, don’t get any ideas about fighting. . . .”

Well, Agnew got precisely that idea and came out swinging. 

And how. Not surprisingly, so has the Trump administration. And why not? The DNC-MSM never punched back when (P)resident Biden routinely insulted them. Why should they expect anything less from the current administration?

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THIS WILL END WELL FOR THEM:

Posted at 3:29 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WHEN BILL MAHER IS THE VOICE OF SANITY:

That puts Maher one up on David Letterman:

In now a famous “You Tube” moment, Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel, went on Letterman to be the recipient of the host’s rude and sophomoric antics. As the segment shifted into high gear, O’Reilly asked Letterman a pointed and direct question: “Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?”

To the surprise of no one but his sycophants, Letterman could not or would not answer the question. When pressed by O’Reilly to answer, the best he could do was to play to his mostly left-leaning audience for cheap debating points and say, “It’s not easy for me because I’m thoughtful.”

As I asked back then, how thoughtful do you need to be? it’s an A or B question: Do you want the US to win, or Al Qaeda, the Baathists, and Iran? Letterman, who, [40] years ago, was once the master of postmodern irony, became its unintentional victim as he unwittingly echoed Jack Benny’s classic gag when he retorted to a fictional mugger shouting ‘Your money or life, pal!’ on his old radio show: ‘I’m thinking it over!’”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

RIOT ACT, READ:

Posted at 1:25 pm by Stephen Green

THIS IS WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO:

Posted at 12:54 pm by Stephen Green

20 YEARS LATER: The Long Shadow of a Lie: The Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax.

Nifong had been in the job less than a year, appointed by Gov. Mike Easley to fill the job after the governor picked the previous DA to fill a vacant judicial seat on the state’s superior court. In March 2006, Nifong was a candidate for his first shot at being elected as district attorney, and the Democratic primary was just two months away. North Carolina was then, as now, a “swing” state. Although George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection had carried North Carolina by a comfortable 12-point margin statewide, Durham County went more than 2-to-1 for Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry, who got 68 percent of the vote in the county. In other words, if Nifong won the Democratic primary, he was practically guaranteed to be elected district attorney in this liberal bastion, but Nifong was opposed by one of his own assistants, Freda Black, in the primary. Nifong’s job was very much at stake when the rape accusation against the Duke lacrosse players landed in his lap.

Meanwhile, word of the case had spread across town and was reported in the March 24 edition of the Raleigh News and Observer. The same day, it was announced that Duke’s lacrosse team would forfeit its next two games. University President Richard Broadhead issued a statement saying that the players were “presumed innocent until proven guilty,” but added that it was “already clear that many students acted in a manner inappropriate to a Duke team member.” The next day, despite the scheduled lacrosse game against Georgetown being canceled, some protesters showed up at the stadium waving signs that read “Real Men Don’t Protect Rapists,” and one of the protesters told a reporter for the student paper: “I am fully aware a crime was committed by someone. It is too bad the rest of the team won’t fess up.” That night, “more than 175 incensed community members gathered for a candlelight vigil” in front of the house on North Buchanan Boulevard where the incident had allegedly happened.

Already, a narrative had begun to develop — the lacrosse players were protecting their guilty teammates, and the university wasn’t doing enough.

Why should the press investigate the truth, when there’s a convenient and self-serving narrative to push?

Posted at 12:31 pm by Stephen Green