While poking around all the likely news sources this morning, I landed on this piece from the Associated Press: “OAN’s Pentagon Reporter Learns the Limits of Expressing Her Own Opinion.”
Here’s the subhead: “The day the face-eating leopard ate my face.”
OK, the subhead is mine, but the story is bonkers, scary, and one of the most MAGA things I have ever read.
Here’s the lede from the AP’s David Bauder, who did an admirable job of playing this one straight, even if I will predict he typed this beauty through gritted teeth:
“Assigned to cover the Pentagon for the conservative outlet One America News Network, Gabrielle Cuccia didn’t pretend to be an unbiased reporter. She describes herself as “a MAGA girl” who is unapologetically defiant in her support of President Donald Trump.
“Yet days after publicly criticizing a Trump appointee, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cuccia found herself out of a job.”
To start with, and there are a million points of entry for a bizarre story like this one, let’s just get this out of the way quick: One America News Network (OAN) — and why isn’t it OAN-N? — is a hardcore right-wing propaganda weapon that doesn’t belong anywhere close to the vicinity of anything serious, much less in the halls of our Pentagon. Ditto, the (allegedly) drunken Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has already shared more secrets with our enemies than Trump on the patio of a Mar-a-Lago all-you-can-eat cookout with half the Russian embassy.
Here’s some background on OAN(N) from Bauder:
One America News Network makes no secret of its allegiance to Trump. When Matt Gaetz’s nomination as Trump’s attorney general fell apart following the election, OAN quickly signed him up as a contributor. OAN faced lawsuits — and negotiated settlements — for its promotion of Trump’s false theories that he did not lose the 2020 election.
So you have a MAGA propaganda network “covering” the Pentagon with a propagandist stooge, who will climb every mountain to proudly proclaim she is completely in the tank for the anti-American Trump Administration, no matter what.
Wipe that grin off your face, Vladimir …
Well, the trouble started for “MAGA girl” when she was reminded that she got her job in the Pentagon not because she is anything resembling a real journalist, but because she is, first and foremost, a power tool.
She was there on behalf of the Trump Administration-OAN(N) partnership to prop Hegseth up, not tear him down. She was there to run errands, not question his decisions.
The minute the power tool started trying to act like a real journalist she would be unplugged, and put away in some box. The last thing OAN(N) wants is any real journalism breaking out at the place.
They have their brutally dishonest brand, and the brutally dishonest White House to protect.
So when “MAGA girl” took against the Pentagon’s restrictive access issues for journalists, and rightwing propagandists like herself under the Trump regime, she wrote an endless Substack piece about it and was promptly removed from her job.
From Bauder’s piece:
“The Defense Department did not pull Cuccia’s credentials, according to a Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues. Cuccia said OAN told her the Substack piece had been “put on their radar,” but she wouldn’t say by who. She wouldn’t speak further about what her employer told her, and OAN president Charles Herring told the Associated Press that it does not discuss personnel issues.”
This is the only part of the AP reporting that rubbed me the wrong way.
HOW can there be any confusion about whether it was the Pentagon who removed “MAGA girl” or OAN(N) when they are the same damn thing? I really wish places like AP would stop being cute about stuff like this, when they know good and damn well that the White House and places like OAN(N) are connected like a toilet to a sewer pipe.
None of the hell we have endured the past decade or so would have been remotely possible without steam shovels like OAN(N) and Fox News spreading their 24/7 manure …
As to “MAGA girl’s” Substack piece that landed her in all this hot water …
I debated whether to link to it here, because it is longer than War and Peace (get that girl six editors, a fire extinguisher, and while yer at it, another martini for Pete), and because thanks to pathetic, bought-off, anti-America power tools like herself our country is teetering on the brink, because there are actually people who swallow her s--- whole, and then spit it out to their friends.
But what the hell, here it is: If you decide you do have about four hours to waste, don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s truly gruesome, and starts this way:
“I feel like I don’t need to start this by proclaiming my love for America the Beautiful — or by saying that I was (and still am) unapologetically defiant in my support for President Trump.”
Because the first rule for any power tool is to not completely short-circuit your relationship with your true power source.
In fact, I predict it’s only a matter of time before “MAGA girl” finds herself another cushy job as a power tool, featuring far more anti-American screed to plug.