To be fair and in a spirt of full disclosure, let me say I like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a sister in arms. She and I were both majors in the military police, at different times and places sure enough, but I respect her for her service and tenacity. I have always liked strong women and she has a lot to like. I do not agree with her on most every issue, but I respect her.

Rep. Gabbard wrote: “Just two days ago The New York Times put out an article saying that I’m a Russian asset and an [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad apologist and all these different smears. This morning a CNN commentator said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia.”

After this quote Ms. Clinton joined in the attack. Tulsi Gabbard is a Democratic candidate for the party’s nomination for president.  She is a former U.S. Army Major who held a top-secret security clearance; we are supposed to believe Ms. Gabbard is a Russian agent? At least per the fair and balanced coverage of CNN and the New York Times, we are.

Come on folks, really? The New York Times and CNN got a lot of miles out of assuring all of us that President Trump was a Russian agent and the proof of it will come out in the Mueller Report — it did not. Russia, Russia, Russia was the mantra for years.

Calling folks the hard left does not approve of allies of President Putin and agents of the Russians got a lot of ink in President Trump’s case, so if it works, use it. Evidence? Truth? We don’t need no stinking proof;  we want it to be true, so we print it. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

Rep. Gabbard should be a shoo-in for the left, a triple plus: minority, a woman, American Samoan and a Hindu. She checks a lot of boxes. Her unforgivable baggage is that she is a military veteran who requested to deploy with a unit going to Iraq in 2004. She also agrees with President Trump that we should get out of Syria, a stand most on the left agreed with until our President advocated it. Uber-liberal on most every issue, she fails the purity test of the left, as she and five other Democrats met with Bashar al-Assad years ago while on a fact-finding trip to Syria. The media seem to forget that Speaker Pelosi and many other prominent Democrats also meet with President al-Assad. Are they Russian agents? Heck, are you a Russian agent? Are you sure?

We need to add a bit of reality to our political debate; calling folks like Ranger Rick and me sexists, racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, and now traitors is kind of boilerplate, done so much that no one pays much attention to it. But calling a woman, Samoan, Hindu, Democrat, a traitor because she disagrees with one small faction of the politically correct doctrine is an outrage, one that is acceptable and even celebrated by the progressives at CNN and the New York Times. Shame on every one of them.

Time for the media elite to set a standard of civility; will they? No, they are terrified of the new socialist media mob and being classified as a counter revolutionary,  or worse, a fair, honest, impartial, journalist. To be accepted you must goose-step in formation with the rest of the media.

I will wager Mr. Jorge Ramos, a media celebrity, set the new standard when he said words to the effect that it is time for journalists to take a stand and to give up impartiality. God help us all, next stop National Socialism, in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and more. The media censored itself, the socialist governments did not need to, and we know how that worked out.

Is U.S. Representative Gabbard a Russian agent? A traitor, as former Secretary of State Clinton and the New York Times have charged? Who in the media cares? The charge alone is enough to end her, destroy her. Welcome to the new media mob’s norm.