Obama’s Propagandist Won’t Face the Heat

Republicans in Congress would like to have a chat with Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes after a shocking story in the New York Times last week. In the article, Rhodes was quoted as saying that he used fledgling journalists and political sleight-of-hand to trick the American people into supporting Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

The New York Times subtly praised Rhodes for his ingenuity, but congressmen like Trey Gowdy are now accusing Rhodes of ducking Congress. “If you have time to talk to a reporter, you have time to talk to Congress,” Gowdy said on Fox News. “You don’t get to have it both ways.”

Gowdy said that some might appreciate Rhodes’ political savvy, but he wasn’t so impressed.

“His background is in creative writing – that’s great if you’re working for the Hallmark channel,” Gowdy quipped. “Drafting documents that deal with our national security? Not so much.”

Republicans haven’t yet decided whether or not to subpoena Rhodes. They should. As with Obamacare, there is now evidence that this administration used deception to sell this Iran deal to the world. When the American people don’t have all the facts, it makes it a little tough to form the right opinion. Conservatives have been warning about the dangers of the Iran deal, but everything coming out of the mainstream media makes it seem like any opposition is purely political.

But that’s only the case if you take the administration’s word for everything. Which is what the media does.

And that’s really where the blame should lie. We can expect that politicians – especially liberal Democrats – will try to hide the truth. But that’s why we have freedom of the press. Reporters are supposed to take an adversarial role. And they should certainly take that role when covering the president of the United States.

Instead, our media has become biased cheerleaders of a political cause. They’ve abandoned all semblance of objectivity. That’s not just dangerous to conservatives; it’s dangerous to our very way of life. It only strengthens state power when politicians are free to use the news media as a tool. There should be no place for that. The media is supposed to expose Americans to the truth, not carry water for a political party.

Independent journalism on the web is getting stronger, so there is hope moving forward. But with the vast majority of Americans still getting their news from the big three networks and the top five or six newspapers, there are so many people who aren’t getting the full story. Sometimes they’re getting lies, sometimes they’re just not getting the whole truth. Either way, it makes a big difference in the way people think.