Kurt Schlichter is one of my closest friends of over 30 years. We served together in the Army for 10 years. He has been my lawyer. When I finished my book, "Decisions: A Middle-Class Memoir," he generously wrote the foreword when he had no obligation to do so. I know the man the Washington Post tried to smear. The yellow "journalist" at the formerly reputable Post does not.
When the Post published its fabrication claiming the Pentagon had "secretly installed military influencers in civilian roles," it was not reporting a scandal. It was manufacturing one. Kurt's column on Townhall tore it apart: the misspelled name, the loaded headline, the anonymous sources, the refusal to mention the actual work or the qualifications of the people doing it. He called it "a hit piece that hits like a girl." He was being kind. He let them off easy.
If Democracy dies in the darkness, the Post has died under the bright light of truth.
In the 1980s, living in California, I subscribed to the Post's weekly compilation of op-eds. In the 1990s, stationed at the Pentagon, I read the Post every morning. I enjoyed it most of the time. It was imperfect, but it felt like a newspaper rather than partisan advocacy masquerading as reporting. Today I would not potty-train a new puppy with the Post.
The assignment the Post treated as sinister was a temporary review of the war colleges. Three retired colonels, Kurt, Tom Anderson, and Rob Maness, were hired as temporary special government employees to examine how the War Colleges prepare colonels to command at the three- and four-star level: major commands, theaters, corps, fleets, numbered air forces.
The Post framed conservative viewpoints as amplified propaganda and left-wing criticism as mere "scrutiny." It treated the hiring of people who share the elected president's view of the military as illegitimate. Under Democrat administrations, hiring people who shared a similar view to the Commander in Chief's was called "expertise." The double standard is the point. The partisan Post is in the tank for Democrats, period, our ability to win wars be damned.
Kurt's credentials were not mysterious. He is a retired Army infantry colonel, a War College graduate, a Desert Storm veteran, and a trial lawyer who spent 30 years in courtrooms. The others had comparable records. The Democrat partisan operative masquerading as a journalist omitted most of that because the facts spoiled the story. The real mantra of the Post: "Never let the truth get in the way of a story." A competent, ethical journalist would have led with the work product and the résumés. This hack led with innuendo and an untrue headline: no one was "secretly installed." If they were "secretly installed," how did he find out? The three positions were tasked inside the personnel and readiness division for a finite project. Kurt was not paid to tweet administration talking points. He was evaluating institutions that train the next generation of Joint Chiefs of Staff members.
He rightfully declined to comment. As General George Marshall famously said, "Never pass up an opportunity to remain silent." A retired colonel doing a bounded piece of work has no duty to sit for a fishing expedition by a birdcage liner that has already written the verdict. The reporter's ability to pull personnel data and a phone number so quickly speaks volumes about the tabloid’s sources and methods. The same hack that hides behind unnamed sources demanded that Kurt disclose a temporary affiliation to his readers. The Post’s hypocrisy is unrestrained.
I have been Kurt's client. I have served with him. He is not a secret agent of anyone's talking points. He said what he thought about defense, immigration, and the culture of the Armed Forces long before this assignment, and he will say it long into the future. The idea that a government email address suddenly turned him into a paid propagandist is, as ex-president Dopey McGropey would say, "...a bunch of malarkey."
The Post's motto is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." They ran that slogan over a sloppy, agenda-driven article that treated patriotism as a plot and competence as a cover story. The darkness they should worry about is the one that falls when readers stop believing them. After the fiction masquerading as reporting appeared, Kurt gained hundreds of followers. That is not an accident. Americans can still tell the difference between journalism and partisan warfare dressed up as reporting.
Russell A. Smith is the author of Decisions: A Middle-Class Memoir — a story of war, survival, adversity, and the choices that define a life. Available now in print, eBook, and audiobook, with a documentary coming soon. This fall, watch for the debut of “Decisions with Russ Smith,” where he’ll tackle the consequential decisions shaping politics, sports, entertainment, and social media. Discover Decisions at DecisionsMiddleclass.com.