Remember when in the Fall of 1980 then the ever cordial yet candid candidate Ronald Reagan was debating President Jimmy Carter who had just made a non-sensical claim against his challenger, and to which Reagan then responded, “There he goes again.”
What is “yellow journalism?” Britannica defines it as “the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation.” Wikipedia describes it as “journalism … that present[s] little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism.”
Well, The Atlantic’s journalists, specifically Editor-in-Chief Jeffery Goldberg and a colleague named Anne Applebaum, are on a “yellow journalistic” writer’s binge in this pre-election Fall season to castigate and to impugn President Trump – apparently using the classic “anonymous sources” ruse to support their venal assaults upon him. Mr. Goldberg’s September 3rd article “Trump: Americans Who Died in War are Losers and Suckers” has quickly shown itself to be another ugly composition headed for the growing leftist “fake news” trash heap.
There they go again, and again, and again — shilling for the Democrat National Committee (DNC). As you may recall, the DNC gained notoriety for sponsoring creative anti-Trump literature – most notably the infamous and falsehood laden “Russian Dossier” in order to foster a coup of sorts — a partisan impeachment — against the newly elected President Trump.
In his article, Atlantic magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Goldberg claims President Trump described an American World War I cemetery in France as being “filled with losers” and referred to American war dead as “suckers.” Trump 2020 campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News host Jon Scott that this report was fake. Murtaugh said, “Of course we are denying the report, because it is fake,” … “there are others who were there in Paris… including the head of the president’s Secret Service detail, who said it also didn’t happen.” Fox News also reports that multiple current and former White House officials, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and former Chief of Staff General John Kelly have denied Trump made the remarks described by The Atlantic. Bolton told Fox News Friday, “I didn’t hear either of those comments or anything even resembling them.”
Murtaugh said further. “I don’t know what happened to journalism, where they [The Atlantic] have these four anonymous sources, they won’t come forward and put their names on it, but The Atlantic is happy to run the story, and it happens to come out exactly at the moment where Joe Biden is in free fall in the polls.” He added that Biden should be answering for the Veterans Affairs “scandals” during the Obama administration, when “people were waiting months, even years on waiting lists … [and] left to die on gurneys in the hallway.”
In contrast to the Obama-Biden Administration record, Murtaugh continued, “That is what President Trump cleaned up, and other veterans are getting the care they deserve and that is how the president shows his reverence for military veterans … and he has restored veterans’ faith in the health care they receive, getting better access, better choices, and better treatment. That is how President Trump approaches the military.”
Remember also that that back in March and out of great concern for veterans’ health and well-being, the President Trump took action and issued an Executive Order to establish a “National Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End Suicide.” This is not a new issue, but one that has persisted for years before President Trump took office – veteran, as well as service member, PTS-based suicides occurring at the rate of 20 per month, of which many are Vietnam veterans.
In his Executive Order, the President said:
“On average, 20 service members and veterans die by suicide each day. As a Nation, we must do better in fulfilling our solemn obligation to care for all those who have served our country. I am therefore issuing a national call to action to improve the quality of life of our Nation’s veterans — many of whom have risked their lives to protect our freedom while deployed, often multiple times, to areas of prolonged conflict. …
“It is the policy of the United States to end veteran suicide through the development of a comprehensive plan to empower veterans and end suicide through coordinated suicide prevention efforts, prioritized research activities, and strengthened collaboration across the public and private sectors. This plan shall be known as the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide or PREVENTS (the “roadmap”).
In early July, the President and the Cabinet-level task force created by the Executive Order, launched the PREVENTS program, managed by the VA, and began the national public health campaign, called REACH, to change the conversation around suicide by urging people to recognize their own risk and protective factors — as well as the risk and protective factors of their loved ones. According to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, “REACH will empower our nation’s Veterans to seek and receive help and it will encourage them to reach out to their brothers and sisters in need who may be vulnerable. The power of this campaign will change how we talk about mental health and suicide in our nation. It will ensure that those in need, especially the men and women who have served our great nation, will receive the care and support they deserve.”
By the way, President Trump’s actions to improve medical service delivery at the VA, to increase access to care for Veterans, and to address the ongoing tragedy of veteran and military member PTS suicides, are not mentioned in the Goldberg fictional account.
Oh well, there they go again, and again, and again.