The Washington Post defined the old term "high dudgeon" when Donald Trump took away its press credentials for being "phony and dishonest."
The paper triggered Trump's act with a loaded headline: "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." This could be believable, since Trump bizarrely suggested Sen. Ted Cruz's father was connected to the JFK assassination.
But this time, the Post invented a story.
Trump had told Fox News, "we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind." He again blasted Obama for refusing to use the words "radical Islamic terrorism," suggesting he might have a dangerous softness toward radical Islam.
To our pro-Obama press that was a nasty slur. But aren't these the same journalists who constantly suggested that President George W. Bush's war on terrorism wasn't tough or smart and only aided the terrorist cause?
Whether or not you can support Trump, it's glaringly obvious that in this year of the presidential election, the Washington Post is out to destroy him. If Trump were any other Republican, it would be the same. The Post self-righteously presents itself as democracy's handmaiden.
It published an editorial written by the editorial board on the evening of June 13 titled "Donald Trump's assault on our values." The unnamed writers lamented Trump's post-Orlando speech. Trump "took a victory lap, hinted darkly that President Obama is an enemy of the nation, libeled American Muslims and, in grotesque punctuation, finished up with a vindictive attack on the media."
They characterized Trump's attacks on the media as "grotesque" and "vindictive." And then they added: "Mr. Trump capped a day of assaulting fundamental liberal democratic values by announcing he would ban Post reporters from covering his campaign events. If this is his inclination now, imagine how he might wield the powers of the presidency."
Many imagine Trump as a wonderful breath of fresh air, refusing to indulge the arrogant elites in the press.
The Post did not publish a huffy editorial last summer when the Clinton campaign banned right-leaning reporter David Martosko of the Britain's Daily Mail from its print pool. And the Post has not expressed any editorial-page outrage as the Obama administration has routinely insulted and avoided Fox News and said it is "not a news organization."
No editorial was published when reporters from three McCain-endorsing papers -- the Washington Times, the New York Post and The Dallas Morning News -- were kicked off Obama's campaign plane days before the 2008 election to make room for reporters from the black-oriented magazines Ebony, Essence Magazine and Jet. The Washington Post only published a brief news item headlined "Reporter Off Obama Plane: Times Editor Squawks."
But when Trump does this there is no "squawking"; there is sanctimony. "Donald Trump's decision to revoke The Washington Post's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press," huffed the Post's Executive Editor Martin Baron. "The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along -- honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically and unflinchingly."
The Post is never more phony and dishonest than when it claims it is utterly "unflinching." In 2012, the paper trashed Mitt Romney on the front page for an alleged bullying incident regarding a classmate's haircut in high school in 1965. But the idea of the Post ever "unflinchingly" covering Obama is a sick joke.
The Post just acquired its first interview with Hillary Clinton since she launched her presidential campaign -- right at the moment she became the first female presumptive nominee of a major party. This is how "unflinchingly" reporter Anne Gearan began the 10-minute interview the Post was granted. She asked, "What will you remember most and if you've thought about it, what do you think you'll tell (granddaughter) Charlotte about last night when she's old enough to hear about it from you?"
Dear Washington Post: Please get over yourself and your completely inaccurate self-image as the essence of fairness, accuracy and nonpartisanship.