Let’s say the president is mentally unfit for duty.
Let’s say that has been pretty clear for a while now, what with his delusion that he won an election he lost, his chaotic imposition of illegal and irrational tariffs, his self-evident lies about how well everything is going, his frequent lapses into incoherence, and so on.
And then let’s say he unilaterally starts a major war of aggression with no clear rationale. He keeps changing his mind about what the goal is, and whether it is being achieved. He boasts about it like a schoolyard bully and makes apocalyptic threats. He says everything is under control when it is not.
Now bombs are dropping and people are dying and tens of millions of people are living in fear.
And it’s all because he’s a profoundly deranged man.
At what point should a news organization devoted to impartiality start stating the obvious conclusion, even if it’s offensive to a small minority of people, most of whom don’t consume their news anyway?
I realize this is not the first time that Trump has cost people their lives – several hundred thousand people have died because of the closure of USAID early in Trump’s second term.
But this is a war.
With that madman as commander in chief.
Who makes his decisions based on “feelings.”
So I have to ask the leaders of our major news organizations: Doesn’t that cross the line?
Doesn’t the fact that he is bombing the hell out of a country for no particular reason, endangering the region, and destabilizing the world make it incumbent upon you to be blunt about the problem, rather than dancing around it? Isn’t it time for clarity instead of euphemism? Isn’t it time to put aside your aloofness, your concerns about appearing partisan, and your fears of offending your corporate masters? Isn’t it time to tell the whole truth, in the best interests of the country and the world?
I sincerely hope that the leaders of our top news organizations are doing some serious introspection right now.
Maybe they’re searching for the right language – they just can’t bring themselves to use words like deranged or dangerous.
Well here are some things they can say – in the institution’s own voice — that don’t sound so extreme, all of which are backed up by extensive evidence.
He is volatile. He is unreliable. He lacks credibility. Sometimes he is incoherent. He is asserting dictator-like powers. He operates in a bubble of enablers. When he utters a falsehood, it is because he is lying or because he has lost touch with reality – or both. He is being misled by his aides. He believes the lies he sees on Fox News.
And if news executives aren’t willing to be blunt in their institutional voice, they should at least include informed speculation about why he says and does things that are so irrational and disconnected from reality.
They can attribute it to experts or critics if they must, but they should fully describe the critique that provides the essential context for virtually every news article coming out of Washington these days.
Something like: “Critics say Trump is deranged and unfit, that his aides are venal, that his cabinet is inept, and that his supporters are cultists. They say nothing he says can be trusted and that he should be removed from office.”
A Case Study: The Bombing of a School for Girls in Iran
In the first massive barrage of the war on Feb. 28, a Tomahawk missile fired by the U.S. government destroyed an elementary school in southern Iran, killing about 175 people, most of them young girls. The horror – it’s almost unimaginable.
Not all the details were immediately available, but even early reports were clear that the deaths were caused by an air strike. There was never any doubt that it involved U.S. or Israeli weapons.
A March 5 visual investigation by the New York Times confirmed that the “precision strike” that destroyed the school “appears to have been part of an attack on an adjacent naval base.” A March 6 Associated Press article recounted the “several factors” that pointed to “a U.S. strike.”
But on March 7, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that “in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.”
Wow.
This, to me, was about as close as Trump could come to publicly announcing his own derangement.
What he said wasn’t just a craven and villainous denial of responsibility, it was ludicrous. It was unhinged. It was disconnected from reality. Best case scenario: he was repeating something completely absurd that he’d heard from his staff or on TV. And he really seemed to believe it.
I thought that should be a big story. But it wasn’t. Most news organizations just mentioned it in passing, noting that the evidence suggested otherwise.
The New York Times reported that “An analysis by The New York Times indicates that the school was most likely hit by an American airstrike.” The Washington Post briefly cited a Human Rights Watch report’s conclusion that the incident “should be investigated as a war crime.”
And to its partial credit, the Times reported the next day, on March 8, that newly released video showed that a Tomahawk cruise missile had struck the naval base beside the school as part of a series of precision strikes. The subhead – though not the article, oddly enough – bluntly stated that “The evidence contradicts President Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for a strike at the school that killed 175 people, most of them children.”
But where was the obvious conclusion that the commander in chief was saying absolutely absurd things about the war? And that this might be a problem? Not there.
Trump was even more ridiculous during a press conference two days later, on Monday, in response to a question from New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh:
McCreesh: There’s footage that shows that an American missile strike and a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girls’ school. So will the Americans — will the US — accept any responsibility for that strike?
Trump: Well, I haven’t seen it and I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by — you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know that. And whether it’s Iran, who also has some Tomahawks. They wish they had more. But whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk, a Tomahawk is very generic. It’s sold to other countries.
Iran doesn’t have Tomahawks. Israel doesn’t even have Tomahawks. Only the U.S., the U.K., Australia, the Netherlands, and Japan have Tomahawks.
Trump should know that.
Instead, the commander-in-chief is talking nonsense. He is either disqualifyingly ignorant, or he’s lying. Or both.
Why won’t our major news organizations say so?
The Sanewashing Continues
On Monday alone, Trump contradicted himself several times about a key question: When does this all end?
Trump at various points said “I think the war is very complete, pretty much”; “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough”; We “will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated”; “We could call it a tremendous success right now — as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.”
CNN’s Aaron Blake was among those who did a nice job of describing Trump’s contradictory statements.
But where is the obvious conclusion that Trump is clueless? That the commander-in-chief has no idea what he’s saying from minute to minute? That he is unfit to be in charge?
Trump’s explanations of why he went to war have been even more contradictory. On Monday, he added this one: “If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East.”
He’s talking nonsense.
And he’s now openly engaging in apocalyptic salt-the-earth style threats. “We will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world,” he said in the Monday press conference. In a Truth Social post Monday night, he raved: “we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign [sic] upon them.”
This is insane, untenable, inhumane language. Journalists everywhere should be sounding alarms. People need to start telling him “no”. This has to stop.
Collecting the Evidence, but Not Reaching the Obvious Conclusions
I’m not saying that mainstream war coverage has been awful. Our major news organizations have at times done an excellent job of collecting the evidence of Trump’s incapacity and reporting it out — particularly the New York Times, which is now more than ever the dominant voice in American journalism.
But they’re not connecting the dots. They leave that to the readers and the viewers. As I’ve written before, their presentation of their findings is mealy-mouthed, often with watered down headlines and top paragraphs full of weasel words.
They are failing to give their audience the necessary and obvious explanation for this madness. That’s not enough. Especially not now.
If you follow me on Bluesky (and you should) you know I have plenty of examples.
Trump’s ‘Unique’ Style
This Washington Post headline on Monday made me gag: “A wartime presidency defined by Trump’s unique political style.”
Reporter Michael Birnbaum described many signs of Trump’s dangerous derangement and unfitness, but the closest we got to a critique was him writing that Trump’s “lack of a visible effort to try to expand the basis of support for the war carries risks.”
In failing to state the obvious conclusion – not even ascribed to “critics” — he sanewashed Trump’s conduct. The headline’s use of the word “unique” is a pathetic euphemism for “chaotic and irrational“. It was worse than nothing.
Trump’s ‘Gut’
The contents of David E. Sanger’s article in the New York Times on March 4 were important and alarming. But the word choices, especially in the headline – “Trump Follows His Gut. His National Security Advisers Try to Keep Up. – were utterly craven. Sanger knows better. Trump doesn’t “go with his gut”. He operates by whim — or under the influence of his fellow autocrats — and his staff scrambles urgently to enable him.
(The ultimate example of a Times story that got the goods but embarrassed itself with its word choice still remains: “Trump Says His Unpredictable Style Gives Him Leverage. But It Has a Cost.”)
Trump’s Endgame
I admired this Times headline on March 7: “In War’s First Week, a Punishing Military Campaign With No Coherent Endgame”. Its seven(!) authors reported that “Trump has bounced between wildly divergent explanations for what he hopes to achieve.”
But why?
Why does Trump have no coherent endgame?
What is wrong with him that he acts this way?
What does it mean for the servicemembers he has sent out to kill and die?
What does it mean for our country that we are led by someone incoherent about the most important things imaginable?
They don’t ask. They don’t tell.
The Momentous Memo
The Washington Post had a dynamite article over the weekend headlined: “Intel report warns large-scale war ‘unlikely’ to oust Iran’s regime.”
The report “found that even a large-scale assault on Iran launched by the United States would be unlikely to oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment.”
It was “completed about a week before the United States and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28.”
Reporters John Hudson and Warren P. Strobel wrote that the findings “raise doubts about President Donald Trump’s declared plan to ‘clean out‘ Iran’s leadership structure and install a ruler of his choosing.”
But the article left its even greater significance entirely unstated.
The fact is that Trump either ignored the report, or was never shown it by his staff. That’s huge. It’s right up there with the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo. It speaks volumes about how Trump jumped into war with no idea what he was doing.
Incidentally, no reporter even asked Trump about that at his press conference on Monday.
Trump and Netanyahu
The Times published an excellent article on March 2 headlined “How Trump Decided to Go to War.” Its six authors described how Trump acted under the influence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the Times seems to have forgotten all about that since then. It doesn’t mention it anymore. It hasn’t raised any questions about what that signifies about Trump’s weakness and incapacity and submissiveness to autocrats.
Trump and Putin
OK, I clapped when I saw this Times headline: “How Trump’s War in Iran Has Echoes of Putin and Ukraine.” Anton Troianovski, a former Moscow bureau chief, was quite frank about how much they had in common.
But then came his conclusion:
The many Russian echoes in the White House’s messaging on Iran underscore the risks of a vaguely defined, open-ended war in which the attacking party pins its hopes on regime change.
Oh my God! How lame! The “echoes” are that an autocrat took his country to an idiotic war on false pretenses and with unrealistic expectations – that we’re ruled by an American version of Putin.
That was all left unsaid.
And don’t even get me going on this bizarre and unacceptable Times story by Amanda Taub, headlined “How Good Intentions Helped Pave Trump’s Road to Iran.”
What We Need More Of
We should be hearing more from the Iranian people. Yes, that’s hard. But it’s essential. Their humanity is a key missing part of the story.
And we should be hearing more from the antiwar contingent: in Congress, among protesters, and among faith leaders.
Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, delivered a powerful “Call to Conscience” on March 7, well worth reading. After seeing an official White House post on Twitter — maybe this one? — he wrote: “A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening.” He concluded:
Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store. But, in the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military. We become addicted to the “spectacle” of explosions. And the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitized to the true costs of war. But the longer we remain blind to the terrible consequences of war, the more we are risking the most precious gift God gave us: our humanity.
I saw no coverage from major news organizations, not even the Chicago Tribune.
It’s Not Working
Top news management’s ostensible devotion to “objectivity” is based on the theory that the people will trust their news sources more if they are “unbiased”, and that accurate information is more likely to be accepted as the truth if readers come to their own conclusions rather than being told what to think. A news organization perceived as objective, they say, has an increased power to persuade, and appeals to a larger audience.
But when their obsessive pursuit of impartiality leads them to deny or obscure the objective truth, it’s gone too far. And the objective truth is that Trump is deranged.
Choosing not to make that explicit doesn’t win over new readers. It doesn’t change MAGA minds. The people who think Trump is rational get their news elsewhere.
It’s bad journalism. It normalizes something that is very alarming. And it pisses off their own readers.
Look, I realize it’s not so easy to cover a war that was launched we’re-not-sure-why, whose goals are entirely unclear, and when the man solely responsible is an unstable, self-contradictory, wildly narcissistic liar who shouldn’t be in charge of anything.
But that’s the point. That’s the story right there. Tell it.