By Marc L. Caroff
Special to WJW
As a former patent law judge with intimate knowledge of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, I am appalled by the asymmetric political warfare being waged by the biased mainstream news media, including Washington Jewish Week, against President Donald Trump and his domestic and foreign policy decisions. That includes giving the Biden presidential campaign a free pass to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public.
The right to a free press implicitly includes the responsibility to apply standards of fundamental fairness in reporting the news. A few examples will suffice to illustrate my point:
1. China represents a grave threat to the U.S. in terms of its aggressive behavior, our overdependence on import of strategic resources from China, its espionage activities and stealing of our intellectual property, not to mention that China knowingly exported COVID-19 to the outside world. While the Trump administration is ably addressing all of these serious issues, the Obama-Biden administration was secretly engaged in making sweetheart deals with the Chinese Communist Party.
2. A large influx of illegal aliens across our southern border created a significant demographic problem, and contributed to a significant increase in crime as well as in drug and human trafficking. While President Trump is appropriately sealing the border, the Democratic Party is crying crocodile tears and advocating for open borders.
3. Anarchists are tearing at the fabric of our society across our nation by engaging in riots, arson, looting and acts of violence against civilians and police officers alike, aided and abetted by Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. While the Trump administration is using all means at its disposal to quell the disturbances, left-wing democrats are using the tragic death of George Floyd as an excuse to exacerbate the mayhem by calling for “reimagining”; i.e., defunding the police and federal law enforcement agencies such as ICE. By doing so, these democrats undermine trust in our police and in our peerless system of justice.
4. An insidious movement is underway across our country to indoctrinate federal employees and students in our public schools and universities with the dogma of “critical race theory” and “systemic racism”; injecting racist anti-white concepts such as “white privilege” and “the 1619 Project” into our society in a sinister attempt to undermine the foundations of our constitutional Republic. Trump has begun to counter this threat; whereas progressive democrats are promoting it.
5. The Democratic Party is promoting use of unsolicited mail-in ballots in the upcoming presidential election. Republicans and others have incontrovertible documented evidence that this balloting procedure significantly increases the incidence of voter fraud and manipulation; the democrats and their media comrades simply ignore the facts.
6. President Trump has wisely rejected the Iran nuclear deal; whereas many democrats deride his decision, thereby covering up the Obama-Biden-Kerry administration’s double-dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Each of the above examples illustrates how democrats and biased left-wing news organizations distort and cover up the facts to deceive the public and increase the odds that Joe Biden will win the election.
Here we have a perfect instance of life imitating art. I refer to the 1962 award-winning film, “The Manchurian Candidate,” where the brainwashed American soldier-turned-assassin represents the American public duped by “progressive” members of the Democratic Party and biased news organizations; and where Joe Biden is the Manchurian candidate.
As Vice President Mike Pence observed in the recent vice presidential debate, “you [democrats and the news media] are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” Neither are you entitled to distort the facts to comport with your radical agenda or give the public half the story. Fundamental fairness and impartiality are the true hallmarks of a free press.
Marc L. Caroff writes from Virginia Beach.
Wow! I understand that each of us lives in our own echo chamber, but it is time to shed our self-righteousness—and arrogance—and have a civil dialog based on facts and without demonizing those who don’t agree with us.
China represents a challenge. A good hedge was/is the TransPacific trade deal that Mr. Trump pulled out of in favor of a “tariff war” that neither changed import/export dynamics or Beijing policy, while roiling financial markets and endangering the American agricultural sector. And, no, the Obama-Biden administration wasn’t “making nice” with Chinese leaders: think Mr. Trump playing golf with Xi Jinping.
The surge of immigrants at the southern border was not beyond the ability of the wealthiest and most powerful nation to address—and to weed out criminality when it existed from refugees in need of a “safe harbor.” No, Democrats are not for “open borders,” building an inconsequential wall, sealing the boundary between Mexico and the United States, nor denigrating people in extremis, or separating children from their parents. Crocodile tears: how about cruelty. A nation’s most important duty is to protect its children, actually ALL children.
The turbulence nationwide stirred up by the serial brutality wrought on citizens of color needs to be addressed. Yes, the police need to be protected and also to be held accountable. The concept of maintaining safety in communities requires re-thinking and novel distribution of resources—not defunding, as well as meting out justice in an equitable fashion. The mostly peaceful protests were tainted by random acts of arson and property destruction and violence—never acceptable—but the greatest threat to civil unrest per the FBI comes from the far right forces of white supremacists and anti-government militias, armed and waiting to “stand by” per encouragement from the Oval office.
And, yes, we can all be sensitized to the concept of social and racial justice. PERIOD.
The canard of the dangers inherent in mail in voting and voting fraud in general is just that: unsubstantiated rhetoric aimed at making it harder for citizens to vote—voter suppression is the greatest threat to a free and fair election–and giving the body politic less confidence in the coming election, courtesy of Republican efforts.
The Iran deal—as imperfect as it is—is a good place to start a dialog about U.S. Middle East policy. Mr. Trump’s pulling out of the international agreement decreased American leverage with the other signatories, didn’t change policy in Teheran, despite the ratcheting up of sanctions on the nation of 80 million—hopefully this policy will bear fruit, but at present there are few good options proposed from the State Department.
The lack of a veto by the Obama administration of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 is of some concern; but it passed 14-0. The UN may not be “Israel friendly,” but Jerusalem–with American help—needs to find ways not to be internationally marginalized. The “deal of the century” wasn’t , but it was a “shot across the bow” as was the UAE/Bahrain deal to alert the Palestinians that their only “off” ramp was to return to the negotiating table. So let’s have a thoughtful discussion about policy without resorting to an assault on the character of those whose views may differ.
(Of some interest is a recent small but representative poll showing most Israelis are pro -Trump, while parallel canvassing among American Jews shows them to be predominantly pro-Democrat.)
The chutzpah of quoting VP Pence’s retort about “opinion” versus “fact” and applying it to Democrats instead of a White House serially negligent in embracing reality over fiction is stunning, as is the attempt to charge “the news media” with pervasive and biased attempts to take down the Trump Presidency. Investigative journalism is just that, and each individual can decide for themselves—without being referred to as lemmings or as ingenues whose eyes have been willfully shuttered from the truth.
A quote attributed to Mark Twain may be applicable, “it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
I would like to thank WJW for providing a forum for give and take.
Respectfully,
Mr. Coleman: I sincerely appreciate your comments. I also thank WJW for providing a forum for civil discourse of the vital matters that affect our nation and the Jewish community. As a Mark Twain enthusiast, I also appreciate your Samuel Clemens quote: “it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” That is why I undertook the difficult task of trying to convince readers of WJW that they are being deceived by the propaganda and outright lies perpetuated by many “progressive” democrats and their comrades in mainstream “news” organizations and in the social media business. I would also refer to a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president of the United States: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” I would hope that those enamored of the Democratic Party’s radical agenda, and the propaganda spouted by its proponents, would be extremely hesitant in labeling any republican, especially Donald Trump, as anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, or anti-Black considering that the GOP was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act specifically because that Act permitted the expansion of slavery into western territories that were soon to become states. I am positive that if people focused on America’s true history/values and on current realities/facts, rather than being fixated on whatever comes out of the mouths of those on the far left, they would be immune from the deception and out-and-out lies consistently promoted by the radical left.
Thank you for your comment; we should have coffee together at some point.
I too am a history buff—although more in the Doris Kearns Godwin, John Meacham, Richard Hofstadter, mode, flavored by Reinhold Niebuhr, Michael Sandel, et al—uncertain if applying 19th century events is relevant in the present political vortex.
Just wondering if you and I can find common ground.
I am optimistic we can find common ground, either in the DC area when I happen to be there, or in the Virginia Beach area when you happen to be here (nice place to vacation especially in the summertime — great beach and boardwalk). Talking about common grounds, I prefer having a civil discourse over a hot cup of cafe’ mocha at Starbucks. [ Full Disclosure: This comment is not sponsored by the Virginia Beach Chamber of Commerce, or by Starbucks] In addition to having a common interest in history, I hope we share the same sense of humor.