Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Giving a Trump victory its due: Media ignores his ISIS success, mocks him

You know journalism is in a sorry state when a New York Times columnist makes news simply by admitting the truth that President Trump’s leadership crushed ISIS.
Ross Douthat, a columnist at The New York Times, is being praised far and wide for noticing one of Mr. Trump’s many victories. Defeating ISIS is not insignificant, but you would barely know it happened if you rely on the legacy media. An even more self-defeating liberal effort is to convince their base that major presidential accomplishments are meaningless.
As a conservative columnist at The Times, Mr. Douthat’s approach was similar to that of many previous Trumpskeptics — he peppered his commentary with a variety of reasons he thinks Mr. Trump is still an oafish boor. Sure, he defeated ISIS and the media ignored it, but it’s Mr. Trump’s fault. He’s a scandalous, controversial president, and if he was just more normal, then the media wouldn’t be so distracted.
We’re told.
In his column, Mr. Douthat sets a tone at the start so no one should mistake his eventual admission as recognition of Mr. Trump’s masterful foreign policy approach. He starts by blaming the president for media malpractice:

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