Shoveling Manure

America just celebrated its Independence Day.  Thomas Jefferson warned, “The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.”

There was a time when journalists were trusted and admired.  All that has changed.  Most of what you read, watch and listen to is distorted by intentional bias and hostility toward a president the media loathes and toward the voters who saw in him a man who pledged to make America great again; someone who would unwind Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America.

On Monday, NBC’s Matt Bradley accused President Trump of using critically ill Charlie Gard’s parents’ grief as a political prop.

If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2017

Bradley suggested that there may be a more sinister motive to Trump’s tweet.  “Now, depending on how you see this, depending really on your impressions of Mr. Trump beforehand, you could either decide that this is the president selflessly stepping in to help grieving parents who are experiencing a terrible, wrenching pain and a baby who has a very rare, very difficult to treat illness or you could decide that this was the president trying to use the grief of two parents and a small baby for political gain and weighing into a situation that was very much a national and European issue and not one we would expect anything from an American politician.  But again, it all depends on how you look at it,” said Bradley.

British Prime Minister Theresa May faces increasing pressure to intervene after President Trump and Pope Francis gave their support as doctors prepare to turn off little Charlie’s life support. 

To defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) June 30, 2017

The Vatican said the Pope “is following with affection and sadness the case of little Charlie Gard and expresses his closeness to his parents. For this he prays that their wish to accompany and treat their child until the end is not neglected.”

Legacy media outlets have been reduced to mere caricatures having been exposed as unprofessional, dishonest and vulgar.

Thomas Paine, often called “The Father of the American Revolution” and author of the pamphlet Common Sense noted, “Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.”

From the vulgar voices of Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher to the assassination porn of Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Kathy Griffin or Shakespeare in the Park, President Trump was right when he tweeted: 

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017