That Washington Post content creator Marc Thiessen is out here lying wouldn’t be worth commenting on if not for his reportedly being one of the main people who advised President Trump that striking Iran would be a good time for all. So he needs to be corrected.
In a piece of content this week for the Post, Thiessen accused Vice President J.D. Vance — a favorite target of the thoroughly discredited neocons — of a “stunning act of disloyalty,” citing Vance’s post-midterms tweet about the election results. “Vance is publicly distancing himself from the person who plucked him from political obscurity, rescued his failing Senate campaign and then elevated him to the vice presidency,” Thiessen wrote, probably while enduring a nasty bout of meat sweats. “It’s an extraordinary act of disloyalty.”
What Vance did in that now-famous tweet was state the obvious. Citing internal GOP campaign data, he said the Republican electoral wipe-out was the result of the unpopular Iran war: “The reason we lost is the war.” He said the president himself had said so, which is true. And when Trump was asked to react to Vance’s tweet, he said it was “largely true.”
It’s a wonder then that Thiessen claimed in his piece of content that Vance was “publicly disagreeing” with the president. He hadn’t. He simply acknowledged reality. The war is unpopular, and voters were predictably, understandably responding to its fallout, especially surging gas prices, which have in turn continued to raise the price of everything else.
Thiessen, who once had a grand total of four different country flags on his X.com profile, is doing what neocons always do. When critics acknowledge the reality of neoconism and say it’s bad, neocons accuse them of lying and bigotry. When supporters acknowledge the same reality of neoconism and say it’s good, neocons thank them for being honest patriots. If Vance had said the war did hurt Republicans, but that it was worth the cost, Thiessen would have had no problem. But because Vance is well known to be ambivalent toward the war, Thiessen is in a rage.
He even imagined what he would have liked Vance to say. “President Trump did the right thing, and I support him 100 percent,” Thiessen said, conjuring up a J.D. Vance who doesn’t exist. “Iran has been at war with us for 47 years, and Trump is the first president to fight back. It was the most courageous decision any president has made in my lifetime.”
And I thought Pam Bondi was a clownish brown-noser.
This is the man who wrote before the war that there would be “no … downside to striking” Iran. Of course he’s mad at anyone who would see the downsides, like Republicans losing control of the House, the Senate, several governorships, and state legislatures. Or, as Marc Thiessen might call that, small potatoes.
Like Vance said in his tweet, an honest person can insist the war is worth whatever price Trump or Republicans have to pay in electoral defeat. They surely believe it. But we’re not talking about an honest person. We’re talking about Washington Post neocon and content creator Marc Thiessen.
