According to the dictionary, a bulwark is a defensive wall-sort of like the wall President Trump wants to build on the southern border to prevent illegal immigration. Hadrian’s Wall and the Great Wall of China are probably the two best known examples of bulwarks constructed in an attempt to halt the advance of an invading army. The Bulwark is a website that curiously describes itself as “a news network launched in 2018 dedicated to providing political analysis and reporting free of the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.”
Which really means The Bulwark probably ought to be called The Bulls##t instead, because they are full of it.
Question: do podcasts count as televised news programs? These people certainly are not competing with Fox News or even CNN for viewers. Founded by former conservative, former radio host Charlie Sykes, The Bullwark employs Never Trumpers such as Bill Kristol, Sykes’ former boss at The Weekly Standard, and Mona Charen, the theoretically conservative author of propaganda such as “How a Democrat Can Win Over a Never-Trumper”, published at Politico. They are the closest thing resembling conservatives that this alleged “news network” employs.
Most of the other writers seem to be pure liberals with credentials as contributors to CNN and MSNBC, or members of Common Cause, which is currently raising money and advocating for mail-in voting. Tim Miller is described as “senior adviser to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC”, whatever that’s supposed to be. This might explain why the website hasn’t become more popular…I remained blissfully unaware of their very existence until an article titled “The Stories Dan Crenshaw Tells Himself” showed up in my Twitter feed. Because I have a tremendous amount of respect for Congressman Crenshaw curiosity inspired me to click on the link, and I’m glad I did.
Now I’m more determined than ever to buy a copy of Crenshaw’s book, Fortitude, at my next opportunity, and to warn other conservatives not to waste their time at The Bulwark. I’d seen all that I needed to see by the time I read this part of the article: “A culture characterized by self-pity, indulgence, outrage, and resentment is a culture that falls apart,” he argues. On Earth 2, this may have been the launching pad for a courageous and ambitious primary campaign that stands up for virtue in the face of our fragile, angry, childish, shameless, self-indulgent, loud-mouthed, insulting, self-pitying, and resentful president. Here on Earth 1, the book is called Fortitude and its author is Rep. Dan Crenshaw, one of the most visible defenders of Donald Trump.”
That pathetic, petty little diatribe came only four paragraphs into the story. My interest in continuing was not unlike the morbid curiosity of drivers who can’t resist looking at the flashing lights on the other side of the median…I knew it would probably make me sick to my stomach, but I had to look anyway.
Article author Tim Miller deserves at least a modicum of credit for acknowledging the toughness and courage of Dan Crenshaw when he wrote: “For starters, he is a Purple Heart recipient who, after being blown up by an IED, demanded that he walk himself to medical evacuation because he didn’t want to expose other servicemen to unnecessary enemy fire. That makes him a badass who knows what courageous leadership is and what it isn’t. He’s also a bilingual graduate of Tufts and Harvard who is an insightful interlocutor on essentially any matter except the objective reality concerning the current president of the United States.”
However, any points Mr. Miller might have earned for fairness, honesty, or impartiality were squandered when he added: “(According to Crenshaw) conservatives can hold two ideas in their head at the same time. The two ideas Crenshaw alludes to are (1) that Trump has character flaws and (2) his administration has been doing a good job. This is a theory that might have some merit if both halves of the formulation were true. They are not.”
Really? I’m surprised that anybody would argue that Trump doesn’t have any character flaws (a joke, for the humor-impaired) because only a partisan hack would argue that the entire administration hadn’t been doing a pretty good job, if not a great job before the virus and haven’t failed at managing the virus from a lack of effort. It would have to be the same sort of a jerk who might celebrate the suffering of millions of American citizens as long as the chances of reelection for President Trump are also hurt by their suffering.
In short, Miller is trying to use the same “morality” argument to criticize Crenshaw for supporting Donald Trump that Democrats and Never Trumpers have tried to use in arguments with me. It’s what I call the “shame” approach—how dare you support a political candidate who is such a moral reprobate? Because they can’t attack Trump’s conservative governing to a conservative audience, they must attack him on the issue of morality. It’s all they have left, now that scandals have failed to undermine President Trump. It usually begins with an appeal to our sense of morality, framed as “you seem to be a good person, so how can you vote for Trump?”
According to Miller, the cardinal sin of Fortitude is that Crenshaw accurately describes how awful Trump is, but only mentions him nine times in the whole book. By comparison, the media is mentioned nine times in the first eight pages, creating the impression that the media is the real villain in the piece, not Trump. It should be no surprise to the reader to learn that Miller wouldn’t grasp the concept that the media are the real villains, given his role as former communications director for Jeb Bush—that strategy of losing to Trump in the primaries in order to win the general election didn’t work out so well, did it? Anybody with that confused and convoluted a message doesn’t deserve to be elected president.
Miller only proves Crenshaw’s point about the corruption of the media when he describes the former SEAL’s appearance on the Bill Maher show, which I also happened to watch. Miller implied this comment from Crenshaw was wrong: “When bullets are flying around my head, I don’t need to raise my voice…calm breeds calm, panic breeds panic. Exuding positivity and calmness in crisis is exactly how we ask SEALs to lead.”
The problem for Miller is that I saw the same interview, and that response was to Maher’s question about Trump’s leadership during the corona virus. The media has been constantly criticizing President Trump for being too optimistic about reopening society, making Miller very upset because Crenshaw approved of Trump’s optimism and leadership during the crisis.
See how it works? Maher invites Crenshaw on his show, and Crenshaw obliges so he can talk about his new book. Maher asks questions about Trump, and Crenshaw answered them magnificently. The following exchange was especially brilliant:
Maher (in reference to Trump’s COVID-19 related travel ban): There are still people coming in from China.
Crenshaw: Let me address that, because I know people are saying that right now, but the reality is that about forty thousand people came in after that, but these are U.S citizens, green card holders, and passport holders being repatriated. U.S. citizens. So, you have to make the argument then that they shouldn’t come in. It sounds to me like you are fully agreeing with President Trump on this when everyone else disagreed with him.
Maher: (looks shocked) No, I…
Crenshaw: Now if you’re saying you wish that travel restriction had been more extreme, fine, you apparently had foresight back then when nobody else did, but the fact is, if Joe Biden had been in charge at that moment, he’s already said he wouldn’t have done it and criticized it at the time. Nancy Pelosi actually proposed legislation to stop it.
Maher: Okay, but people are still coming in from China. It wasn’t just foreign nationals. But let’s get off that…
Doc’s Channel apparently summed up the general consensus of viewers in the comments section: “Crenshaw hadn’t killed anyone in a while so he came to murder Bill.”
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