“Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
George Washington Carver (c. 1864-1943)
Fake news! “Holy red herring,” as Robin might have said to Batman! The next thing they will be telling us that Santa Claus is fake! Come on! There has been fake news since time immemorial. Think of agencies like the CIA., M15 and the KGB that have always used fake news for purposes of deception. Consider the Apocryphal Press (www.apocryphalpress.com) run by my good friend and former classmate Tom Korson, who uses fake news for the purpose of humor. Think of The New York Times and the Financial Times, both of whom regularly confuse fact with fiction. Much of “real” news is fake.
Hypocrisy is embedded in the sanctimonious Left. Less than two months before the 2004 Presidential elections, Dan Rather went on Sixty Minutes and falsely targeted George W. Bush’s service in the Air National Guard. Later, Brian Williams lied about his helicopter being shot down in Iraq. In 2008, while running for President, Hillary Clinton lied about coming under fire when landing in Kosovo in 1996. She blamed the attack in Benghazi, which killed four Americans including the Ambassador in 2012, on a “hateful” video. In 2009, President Obama told us that under the Affordable Care Act “…we could keep our health-care plan, if we chose.” Or Al Gore’s talking of Polar Bears stranded on melting ice sheets. Or the drumbeat among mainstream media, in the weeks leading to the 2016 election, which assured voters that Donald Trump was too flawed to be elected President. And what about the “recall?” It was born amid great fanfare, but slunk off into the forest to die alone. We were told all of these stories were “real,” but none were. So, what about Santa Claus? With ten grandchildren, I’ll let someone less encumbered respond.
Most media today twist news to accord with a predetermined narrative. News sources on both the Left and the Right succumb to pressure from readers and viewers. But the left’s version is more heinous, as it makes a pretense of having no biases. They cloak their stories in a mantle of sanctimonious rhetoric. The New York Times, a week ago last Sunday, had the chutzpah to editorialize about guiding Americans back to a path of commonly accepted facts: “A President and other politicians who care about the truth could certainly help them along. In the absence of leaders like that, media organizations that report fact without regard for partisanship, and citizens who think for themselves, will need to light the way.” Mr. Sulzberger, it has been you and your staff that have persistently sculpted the news to fit your story lines. It is you and the liberal mainstream media that are so badly in need of a lantern.