When Truth & Accuracy Are Politically Smothered…
It’s usually okay to let really stupid and ignorant comments from ill-informed pandering politicians just slide.
But not this time.
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“The United States of America, not one airport ranks in the top 25 in the world. What in the hell is the matter with us? It means commerce. It means income. It means security. And we don’t even rank in the top 25. Not one single airport.”
This throw-away comment, uttered by the guy in the White House, has now been taken up as a rallying cry by much of the aviation media, each suddenly trying to outdo the other to validate just how bad the airport system really is.
It must be, because a guy with a long and verified track record of making, well, inaccurate statements said so.
The Next Big 6PM Topic. Now, before last week, none of them seemed to recognize the new cause celebre that’s sooo trendy because of a few unsubstantiated and undefined comments made at a carefully-controlled press event.
There were until now no big articles on “airport overcrowding” or lack of technology, or whatnot. No discussions of how we have a security problem by not being in the not-to-be-defined metric of the “top 25.” Zero definition of that term, but it’s the new rallying cry.
Nope, it’s all reporting about how “Biden is taking on America’s outdated airport system.” How, shock! America’s airports aren’t even in the top 25! How it’s the new woke subject about America’s decline.
Funny, we haven’t seen a definition yet of what comprises the “top 25” he’s blustering about and which a lot of the supposed aviation media experts are now parroting.
Funny, nobody – and that means nobody – has even had the ethical guts to point out that this guy has a track record of saying things that simply aren’t factual, or even to try to find out what he is babbling about. For heaven’s sake, don’t look into that. It will spoil the narrative.
At least now we have an answer to the issue of “what’s the matter with us?”
It’s a total pandemic of cowardice in a lot of the veneer media to actually ask questions that might run counter to the latest dogma coming from inside the Beltway.
This veneer pronouncement about our airport system is a political stunt without any attempt to back it up. In short, he was reading from a crib sheet. Can’t get around that – the undefined “top 25” comment is the leper’s bell of somebody who’s totally ignorant of the subject matter.
The Propaganda Machine Is In Overtime. But help is on the way. Watch this week as “source” after “source” – and we are likely including major networks – publishes articles illuminating the aspects of our collapsing airport system.
There will be comparisons with Istanbul and Singapore – illuminating shiny objects to “prove” comments made by a guy that in normal cases they would blow off as having no credibility whatsoever. Then the damning evidence that the only new US airports built in the last 20 years was at a small community in Utah, and one in the Dakotas, with the unstated intent to show we need more airports, with no validation.
But, let’s be honest. They gotta support the new narrative, see.
…Okay, sorry if this discussion of a cheap ignorant comment made by a politician offends anybody.
Truth can do that.
The ball is now in AAAE and ACI’s court.
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