Watch: Disabled SEAL Dan Crenshaw Takes Apart Entitled Lib Complaining of 'Attacks' Against the Press
Rep.-elect Dan Crenshaw has quickly established himself as one of the most visible incoming members of the 116th Congress, and not just because of that “Saturday Night Live” appearance.
(That didn’t hurt, mind you.)
It’s also not just because he’s an enthusiastic supporter of what he believes in — although he is. And it’s not because of the fact that he’s a disabled Navy SEAL — although that certainly factors into it.
Rather, it’s because he’s good at putting things into context. Nowhere was that more evident than on this weekend’s edition of “Face the Nation” on CBS this Sunday, where Crenshaw managed to put talk about “attacks on the press” into context.
The defense came after another representative-elect, Democrat Joe Neguse of Colorado, stated his belief that “some of our democratic freedoms and the principles that we live by have been under attack for the better part of the last two years.”
Asked for a response as a member of the president’s party, Crenshaw said, “Well, I always ask the question like — like what?
“You know, like what is he undermining exactly? You know, what democratic freedoms have been undermined? We just has an election where we switched power in the House. Democracy is at work. People are voting in record numbers.”
.@DanCrenshawTX: “How is that an attack on the press though?”
DEMOCRAT: “Because it is literally an attack on the press.”
CRENSHAW: “Oh, I’ve literally been attacked, so let’s choose our words carefully.”
— CRTV (@CRTV) November 19, 2018
“I always ask for examples, and then we can hit those examples one-by-one, and if it’s — and if it’s worth criticizing, it’s worth criticizing, but just kind of this broad brush criticism that the president is somehow undermining our democracy. I always wonder like, what exactly we’re talking about,” he said.
Neguse mentioned “the undermining of the free press” and Rep.-elect Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania mentioned “free press, you know, judiciary.”
“How has he undermined the free press?” Crenshaw responded. “Obama indicted — had many press members under investigation. Trump has not.”
“Just this last week, one of the largest media publications in the United States, right, had to go to a federal court in order to, essentially, regain access to the press room–” Neguse shot back, referencing the Jim Acosta case.
“No, that was for one reporter. One reporter,” Crenshaw noted. “Not the whole organization.”
There was a back-and-forth about whether Acosta was disruptive and whether President Trump had also been disruptive.
“But how is that — and how is that an attack on the press, though?” Crenshaw said.
“Because it’s literally an attack on the press,” Houlahan responded.
“Oh, I’ve literally been attacked,” Crenshaw said. “So I don’t — let’s choose our words carefully.”
Point, set and match, Crenshaw.
Keep in mind that behind all this rhetoric, there hasn’t been a lot to show how Trump has attacked the free press. He may have criticized the institutionalized media, sure — and they’ve criticized him in the strongest of terms, proving that any “attack on the free press” has been wildly unsuccessful, if it can proved to be extant.
As for Acosta, Crenshaw is again correct. The network didn’t lose access — indeed, isn’t in danger of losing access — but merely had one of its correspondents lose a White House press pass due to using the microphone to deliver a monologue and then physically resisting the intern tasked with taking it away from him. That’s disruptive behavior, and it was handled with a pass being revoked — not with an “attack on the free press.”
The point is that the media believes it’s beyond criticism, at least by politicians. They believe in a halfway version of the old Mencken dictum: “The only way to look at a Republican politician is down.”
When that politician returns the favor, they view it as an attack. But it’s not — not literally or figuratively, as Crenshaw pointed out.
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