Other presidents throughout American history have endured harsh criticism from the press. None of them, however, have faced anything like the relentless, organized hit job that is the establishment media’s coverage of President Trump, featuring not just criticism, but distortion, half-truths and outright lies, all designed to make the American people not just vote against him, but disrespect, despise, and even hate him. In pursuit of this goal, consistency goes out the window, and fairness is but a dim memory. Trump is excoriated for anything and everything he does, even when any remotely fair-minded person would see it as positive. NBC News showed this anew on Tuesday in a “Hot Take” it published about the Israel-Morocco peace agreement.
NBC’s “military writer” Sébastien Roblin tells us solemnly that “the U.S. ruptured decades of foreign policy in North Africa to forge the agreement, setting the stage for violence that could destabilize the region.”
Given conditions all across North Africa, with Libya still in the state of chaos and ruin that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton brought upon it, Egypt oppressing its Christians (as always), and Algeria and Morocco both upholding Sharia blasphemy laws that outrage the freedom of conscience, it seems strange to lament the passing of the status quo ante, but Roblin makes his agenda clear when he writes that “as is so often the case with Trump, his characterization bears little relationship with reality.”
This and more in his article makes it obvious that the “military writer” is not engaged in actual foreign policy analysis, but is just out to tar Trump in any way he can. For it is absolutely true that the Israel-Morocco peace agreement and U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara may indeed turn out to have ill effects, but NBC News readers, not known for being the sharpest knives in the drawer, may not realize that such speculation can be carried out in virtually any context, but during the Obama years, seldom (if ever) was.
For example, if Sébastien Roblin had been so inclined, he could have written about how the “Arab Spring” uprisings that the Obama administration supported so enthusiastically were really just Muslim Brotherhood initiatives designed to impose Sharia in various North African states, but back when that “Spring” was in full flower, NBC News and all its establishment colleagues were busy popping open the champagne and hailing the far-sightedness of their Nobel laureate president.
Even Fox, which was years away from switching sides back then, hailed the coming of “democracy” to Egypt and other North African states, and never once considered the possibility that the Great Leader Obama might have made a world-historical misstep that would take decades (or longer) to clear up. Nor was there any chorus of disapproval or dark warnings of negative consequences when Obama and Hillary Clinton destabilized Libya and offered up our consular staff in Benghazi in their efforts to save face.
But Trump makes a move for peace, and NBC hastens to tell us it will mean war. Sébastien Roblin is here carrying water for the failed foreign policy establishment that is licking its chops at the prospect of Obama’s dotty old puppet entering the Oval Office and getting the chance to implement its failed policies yet again. Trump, the non-politician, the genuine outsider, has shown them all up by concluding these peace deals. He has shown their analyses to be false and their recommendations to be wrongheaded.
And so he must be destroyed – not just turned out of office by hook or by crook (with a heavy emphasis on crook), but completely and utterly discredited. This endeavor is a cornerstone of the political elites’ effort to make sure that an uprising such as the one Trump represented will never happen and can never happen again. Not only was he stupid and corrupt, we are told, but even his successes were failures, and only the establishment’s failures are really successes. Understood properly by the self-anointed experts, Trump’s peace meant war, and only their multiply-failed proposals can set things right.
And so for Sébastien Roblin, war is peace and peace is war, George Orwell is reconfirmed as a prophet, and soon Trump’s successes will be consigned to the memory hole. Then everything will be all right. The powerful will have restored and further secured their power. As the world explodes with bloody new conflicts, they can sip their champagne and congratulate themselves over how they removed that warmonger Trump and restored peace to the world.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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