EDITOR’S PICKS
Spinning Iran
Whenever there is news, there is spin. Following last week’s assassination of Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and Iran’s retaliatory strike on two U.S. bases in Iraq, Trump’s army of supporters emerged in full force to celebrate the killing. And, as Lee Fang writes, many of those who praised Trump’s decision-making had skin in the game: “Many of the pundits … have undisclosed ties to the defense industry — the only domestic industry that stands to gain from increased violence.” Those pundits included former Gen. David Petraeus, who now works for an investment firm with holdings in defense contractors, and Jeh Johnson, former Obama Homeland Security secretary, now on the board of Lockheed Martin. We made a video compilation of those pundits.
While the media gave military hawks a voice, reporters were quick to jump on Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren for calling Suleimani a “murderer” and his death an “assassination” — and later agreeing that Suleimani was classified as a “terrorist.” There is no contradiction, writes Robert Mackey, in using all those terms to describe the head of the Quds Force. “What’s instructive,” he continues, “is to see how political reporters, sensing that Republicans would attack Democrats for using the word assassination, responded by pressing the presidential candidates who used the word to say they were wrong to do so, and asking those who did not use it to comment on those who did.”
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