The activist media is still big mad at former President Donald Trump for the nontroversy over his visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
The former president visited the location to acknowledge the anniversary of the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending the nearly 20-year war. He laid a wreath to honor the 13 service members who lost their lives due to President Joe Biden’s inept handling of the withdrawal effort.
Yet, the media is choosing to fixate on an alleged altercation that occurred between members of Trump’s team and some of the cemetery staff. They are criticizing him for posing for pictures with the families of the victims in an area where photography isn’t allowed. Apparently, this constitutes the desecration of a sacred area, which means his show of support for the Gold Star familieswas somehow a bad thing despite the fact that they specifically invited him to be there
Meanwhile, President Biden was living it up on the beach during his vacation on the anniversary, which didn’t get much criticism from the press.
Go figure.
Yet, it has been days since Trump’s visit, and the media is still clinging tenaciously to their pearls while lamenting how bad the Orange Man is.
CNN published a report detailing how the U.S. Army scolded the former president for his supposed atrocity.
The US Army issued a stark rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over the incident on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, saying in a statement on Thursday that participants in the ceremony “were made aware of federal laws” regarding political activity at the cemetery, and “abruptly pushed aside” an employee of the cemetery.
“Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” the Army spokesperson said in the statement on Thursday. Section 60 is an area in the cemetery largely reserved for the graves of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Author Michael Powell wrote an op-ed for The Atlantic in which he accused Trump of “defiling what is sacred in our civic culture” and repeated the lie that the former president referred to deceased soldiers as “suckers.”
For Trump, defiling what is sacred in our civic culture borders on a pastime. Peacefully transferring power to the next president, treating political adversaries with at least rudimentary grace, honoring those soldiers wounded and disfigured in service of our country—Trump long ago walked roughshod over all these norms. Before he tried to overturn a national election, he mocked his opponents in the crudest terms and demeaned dead soldiers as “suckers.”
But the former president outdid himself this week, when he attended a wreath-laying ceremony honoring 13 American soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul during the final havoc-marked hours of the American withdrawal. Trump laid three wreaths and put hand over heart; that is a time-honored privilege of presidents. Trump, as is his wont, went further. He walked to a burial site in Section 60 and posed with the family of a fallen soldier, grinning broadly and giving a thumbs-up for his campaign photographer and videographer.
In a piece for MSNBC, combat veteran Brandon Friedman also joined in on the whining.
Trump was so eager to use Arlington’s Section 60 as a backdrop for a campaign event this week that he may have broken federal laws against politicizing the burial ground to do it. Trump’s staff also shoved aside a cemetery official trying to stop them. He even posed for a photograph over a U.S. Marine’s gravesite, grinning and giving a thumbs-up. The moment was jaw-droppingly crass and vulgar, as all of Trump’s are. It defiled sacred ground.
But of course, Trump’s disregard for military tradition and his disdain for military service members is well documented. This incident was only the latest in a long line.
On the day that Trump visited the cemetery, CNN’s Jim Acosta suggested that he was politicizing the moment even though the former president said nothing about the Biden administration’s incompetence in withdrawing troops from the region while he was commemorating those who lost their lives.
The fake furor over this incident is telling. Even if Trump could have done things differently, does it really warrant days of outrage? He was there to show support for the Gold Star families who lost loved ones because of the White House’s many blunders.
Perhaps that’s the point.
Maybe folks on the left are pretending to be extra outraged at Trump’s visit because they want to distract from one of the biggest disasters of the Biden administration. It is in their best interests to try to make the public forget about the 13 service members who were needlessly killed because the White House couldn’t get it together. The election is only about two months away, after all.
The issue of our botched withdrawal from Afghanistan is not going away, nor should it. Vice President Kamala Harris will have to answer for the failures of her boss. Hopefully, Trump will force her to do this during their upcoming debate.