What’s More Important? What Russia Does Or What Donald Trump Tweets in Response?

My second post-Christmas post on pre-Christmas things:

On Friday and Saturday of last week, Donald Trump was accused of starting a new nuclear arms race when he tweeted on Thursday:

“The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Much of the MSM (i.e., mainstream media) went ballistic.¹  The Chicago Tribune’s headline read “‘Arms race’ rings alarms; Trump’s words on nukes, a shift in policy, shakes [sic] globe”.²  The headline in The Wall Street Journal said “Trump Supports Strengthening of Nuclear Arsenal”.²  The articles in both newspapers, as well as The New York Times, included quotes from anti-nuclear weapons groups, accusing Mr. Trump of threatening to start a new nuclear arms race.  (The Tribune story called the group it quoted “non-partisan”.  Yeah, right.)

All of which is typical of how the MSM reports issues like this.  The Russians do something.  We respond.  And we are the ones who are provocative or, in this case, starting a new arms race.  What was only mentioned deep in the articles was that Mr. Trump’s tweet was in response to a speech by Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday to a group of top Russian military officers, in which President Putin said Russia needed to

“strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems.”

Not only did the Tribune only mention Vladimir Putin’s statement in the twelfth paragraph of its article, the Tribune also said Mr. Trump’s tweet was “apparently in response”³ to what President Putin said.  While The New York Times mentioned President Putin’s statement in the second paragraph of its article, it too said that Mr. Trump’s statement “may have been a response”³ to Vladimir Putin’s statement.  “Apparently in response”; “may have been in response”?  Give me a break.  Of course, Mr. Trump’s tweet was in response to what Vladimir Putin said. 

But that is not the way these issues are reported.  It is the United States that is provocative, even though we are just responding to what Russia (previously the Soviet Union) is doing or saying. Russia establishes new divisions on Ukraine’s border and the borders of the Baltic states, and it is NATO that is being provocative by rotating in battalions.  Russia conducts military exercises that include hypothetical nuclear attacks, and the MSM goes crazy over a Donald Trump tweet.⁴

Instead of worrying so much about “fake news,” maybe we should pay a little more attention to how much of the MSM reports the real news.
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¹ Sorry.  I couldn’t resist.
² This was the headline in the print edition.
³ Emphasis added.
⁴ Robert Gates wasn’t all that concerned about Mr. Trump’s tweet. According to David Ignatius:  “Gates told me Thursday that he wished Trump had used the word ‘modernize,’ rather than ‘expand,’ but that ‘what he said is okay, given Putin’s recent comments.’”