March 20, 2018

When a pundit who cheerleads the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for Fox News while blasting the black President as a "pussy" resigns as their pundit, something is amiss indeed.

Col. Ralph Peters was a vocal and vitriolic critic of President Obama, but even he has had enough. In an email sent by Peters to the Fox News staff and obtained by Buzzfeed, Peters explained his decision not to renew his contract.

"Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to 'support and defend the Constitution,' and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform," Peters wrote. "Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers."

He added, "Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed."

A solid argument can be made that he should be ashamed of the rest too, but we will take what we can get.

Peters went on to say, "Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration."

He had special words for the prime time opinion hosts holding themselves out as legitimate journalists.

"When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove," he explained.

Peters concluded, "To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit."

Well, yes. I'm surprised it's taken him this long to notice, particularly when he was part of the problem. I'm glad he's come to Jesus and all, but let us not forget the harm Peters himself did to our system of government by consistently banging the drum for war and corporate profit.

We have extensive archives of Peters' harm to our democracy. His hands are not clean. But if he turns away from the Fox News propaganda machine and calls them what they are, we'll take it. Let's have more like Peters.

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