The Washington Post has its priorities — and using its Memorial Day edition to salute Americans who have died for their country clearly isn’t one of them.
The newspaper of the nation’s capital, an institution practically within shouting distance of Arlington National Cemetery, saw fit to centerpiece its front page on Memorial Day this year with a long, emotional story about families who have lost sons and husbands to fighting overseas.
But it wasn’t the American flag they were fighting under — and that should infuriate Americans who know what Memorial Day is all about.
Syndicated columnist Byron York called out the front-page article with a Twitter post calling it a “perverse choice of subjects to mark Memorial Day.”
From the Washington Post, a perverse choice of subjects to mark Memorial Day. https://t.co/b0txeGTYAr pic.twitter.com/yr5Go0nNlg
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 29, 2023
He was dead on.
The Post’s story was a 2,300-plus-word look at families and other survivors of Americans who have died in Ukraine, fighting on the side of the Kyiv government against Vladimir Putin’s Russian invasion.
As a topic itself, it’s not terrible. Editors at every newspaper in the land try to find new angles to cover holidays that readers haven’t seen before.
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And to be fair, the Post had other, much more appropriate Memorial Day material elsewhere.
But as the lead article for a holiday that’s devoted to honoring American dead who gave their lives for American freedom, it’s appalling.
Even worse, it’s insulting.
Here’s how the fourth paragraph reads:
“As America’s most recent wars fade into history, some veterans have chosen to take up arms in Ukraine and, in at least 16 instances, given their lives while either defending its people from Russia’s onslaught or aiding those trapped in the violence.”
America’s most recent wars “fade into history”? It’s not even two full years since President Joe Biden disgraced his country with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Post and its readers might remember that on Aug. 26, 2021, 13 American servicemen and women died in one day in a terrorist bombing in Kabul — that’s almost as many as the 16 individuals the Post deemed worthy of writing about here.
And that doesn’t even begin to count the thousands of other servicemen and women who have died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere since the terrorist attack of 9/11 launched the global war on terror in 2001 a little more than two decades ago.
But for the Post’s editors in May 2023, these wars are fading “into history,” while more urgent matters — fighting in a nation thousands of miles away on behalf of a foreign flag — take precedence.
And obviously, it doesn’t hurt that the Ukraine war is embraced by Democrats and liberal celebrities.
York wasn’t the only critic.
One Twitter user, noting disputed rumors that Post owner Jeff Bezos is trying to sell the newspaper, wrote: “@washingtonpost doesn’t value veterans, police, or truth. That’s why they are among the least trusted in the business.”
@washingtonpost doesn’t value veterans, police, or truth. That’s why they are among the least trusted in the business. No wonder Bezos is trying to dump it. Circular and yellow journalism rivaling only the @nytimes.
— VroomNBoom (@FL_Independent) May 29, 2023
Tone death would you say?
— Zabago (@Zabago1) May 29, 2023
I stopped reading the Washington Post and New York Times after the election of 2016. That is when I got woke. I woke up to the fact both newspapers are in the tank for the left. The Washington Times and New York Post I still read
— Joe Coyne (@CoyneJoe) May 29, 2023
It’s important to point out that this isn’t to disparage the subjects of The Washington Post piece. Any man or woman willing to put life and limb at risk for the cause of freedom deserves to be honored. Those who give their lives deserve to be remembered.
But what we’re talking about here is Memorial Day — set aside specifically for the heroes who have given their lives for American citizens and American values.
Even Joe Biden, the current president and author of too many embarrassing episodes in American life, understood that.
Here’s the first line of his proclamation issued Friday: “On Memorial Day, we honor America’s beloved daughters and sons who gave their last full measure of devotion to this Nation.”
That’s “to this Nation.” Not to a nation an ocean and half a continent away. Not to a flag that isn’t Old Glory. And not just because the cause is approved by progressives with Ukraine flags on their Twitter accounts.
The top priority of Americans marking the Memorial Day holiday should be honoring Americans and those who have died for the American cause — like the 400,000 heroes buried at Arlington.
The Post should take a look at its priorities again.
