Newsweek is facing intense backlash after editing a story from 2015 about Army Ranger School in order to support a recent smear campaign against Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton’s military record.
Newsweek featured a recent story attacking the conservative senator for claiming to have “experience as an Army ranger” when he didn’t. It misrepresents his military record by pointing out that soldiers who complete the course have the right to wear the Ranger tab, but in the eyes of the military, that does not make them an actual Army Ranger.
Other media outlets pointed to a 2015 article they wrote about how for the first time in the Army Ranger School’s 64-year history, two women have “completed the intense training program and will become rangers.” Newsweek had quickly edited the article from “will become rangers” to “will be allowed to wear the coveted Ranger tab on their uniforms” to support their recent piece against Sen. Cotton. A note was included at the end that while completion of the course allows one to wear the Ranger tab, it does not make one a ranger.
“I graduated from the Ranger School. I wore the Ranger tab in combat with the 101st Airborne in Iraq. This is not about my military record. This is about my politics. Ranger Regiment legends like Gen. Scotty Miller or Gen. Craig Nixon have used the term to describe both alumni of the Ranger Regiment and graduates of the Ranger School, as did the secretary of the Army, as did most of my buddies in the Army … as did most of the liberal media, until a conservative veteran was using the term that way,” explained Sen. Cotton on Fox News.
Critics lashed out at the edit that had also stripped two dedicated women of valor just to fulfill a left-leaning smear campaign. “So what’s the goal here @Newsweek? Rewrite history to take away the achievements of these women simply to satisfy the liberal Left’s mission of canceling conservatives? Enough. I appreciate everyone’s military service, period,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, a former member of the Iowa Army National Guard.
Time to keep track of all of the memory-holing done by the US press. https://t.co/ppWgsUTLSW
— American Conservatives (@AmConservatives) January 27, 2021
Cotton has been the subject of multiple smear campaigns after being widely seen as a top contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. His communications director, Caroline Tabler told Fox News that Cotton had been awarded the coveted Ranger tab upon graduating Ranger School and served with the famed 101st Airborne Division. He never claimed to have served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, which is a Special Operations unit, separate from the school.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that mainstream media outlets are now matching their present-day stories by rewriting old ones. If one is not being canceled or censored by the radical left, then there is always the prospect of having a past record adjusted or altered to shape the present reality. That is a liberal America.
