Ugliness in national politics won’t stop, especially against veterans
When President Trump says something negative about veterans or “Gold Star” families, he is crucified. But when the left says something negative about veterans, it’s considered an acceptable form of humor, a joke, and free speech. The disrespect of our veterans has intensified and become a political football
By Ray Hanania
Imagine the Tsunami of moral lectures if President Trump had ridiculed an Afghan veteran who lost an eye as a result of an IED explosion.
But it wasn’t Trump who said that Dan Crenshaw, a Republican candidate for Congress in Texas who lost his eye while serving our country in the military in Afghanistan.
It was a guy who never served his country, Pete Davidson, who ridiculed the way Crenshaw looks with the eye-patch, during his segment on Saturday Night Live (SNL).
I didn’t hear NBC executives rush to judgment and fire Davidson. In fact, why should they? Most of the national mainstream news media came to Davidson’s defense. Maybe he went a little too far but it was just humor.
Davidson’s colleague Alec Baldwin, who has revived his near-dead career by viciously mocking Trump on SNL, was arrested over the weekend, too. Seems Baldwin punched another man in the face during an argument over a parking spot outside of Baldwin’s New York City home.
It wasn’t Baldwin’s first encounter with breaking the law. But, Baldwin is a media darling and he can survive the ugly accusations and he hasn’t been fired by NBC, either.
I don’t care that people get mad at me, claiming I am defending President Trump. Actually, I am not defending President Trump. He can defend himself. I am instead slamming the news media and the entertainment media for their hypocrisies, their doubles standards, and their holier-than-thou attitudes where they can criticize others for things they do all the time.
It’s the hypocrisy, stupid! That’s the issue.
I knew what Trump was like. We all watched him over 15 years hosting the successful reality show, Celebrity Apprentice.
Thinking about that reminded me of the Oprah Winfrey Show aired for 25 years beginning in 1986. In interviewed Winfrey in 1986 after she came to Chicago, when I was writing for the celebrity column Page Ten.
Here’s what I remember about the two of them, who are both really in politics, with Trump leading the Republicans and Winfrey rallying voters for the Democrats. Comparing the two tells you exactly what the differences are between the two national political parties.
Trump was all about making people compete for jobs. Winfrey was all about giving things away.
Does something sound familiar in that pattern?
I am so happy the election is finally over. It doesn’t matter which side wins or loses, so I won’t even try to make a prediction (writing this column on Monday, the day before the Nov. 6, Tuesday General Elections. I have covered more than 40 elections and I know that the results go back and forth.
This year, I can say with confidence there are no winners. America is the big loser as hate, anger and bias sweep across this country.
The news media doesn’t care. (And when I say “news media” I am talking about the national mainstream news media not the local community media.) They’re making a fortune from the campaign ad buys.
It doesn’t matter that few of the TV campaign Ads tell us about what the candidates plan to actually do. Because in national American politics, no one pays attention when someone comes up with a great plan to improve the crappy system of education we have in this country, or stymie the rampant crime wave destroying our cities and even the suburbs, or talk about new ideas on how to stimulate the economy.
All we hear about are sinister-voiced narrators in campaign ads paid for by blind Political Action Committees funded by dark forces we will never be able to identify. They fund the mud slinging. The Major media profits from that mud. And the average American pays for it all indirectly through our tax dollars.
Meanwhile, morons like Davidson can go on TV and insult every American who served in the military, while defending those who think that disrespecting our National Anthem is a good way to protest injustice.
Every time I hear the National Anthem I cry. I think of my dad and uncle slogging through nearly four years of fighting during World War II. My dad was born on Nov. 11, 1903, 15 years before it became Armistice Day and later renamed as Veteran’s Day.
Happy Veteran’s Day, people. This is all what we’ve been fighting to defend, right?
(Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist, and contractor with the village. Hanania can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com and by email at rghanania@gmail.com.)
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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