The remains of U.S. soldiers who fought and died in Korea were welcomed home on Wednesday night. Vice President Pence was there on behalf of President Trump and a grateful nation.
On his way to Hawaii, Pence stopped in California to pick up two guests: Diana Brown Sanfilippo and Rick Downes. Diana and Rick were both young children — just three and four years old — when their fathers left for Korea. Sadly, their fathers never returned.
It’s a long shot, but Diana and Rick hope their fathers’ remains were among the 55 that came home on Wednesday.
If you want to better understand why America is so divided, here’s one reason: We are getting our facts from very different places.
President Obama used to make that argument and, to a degree, he was right. But he went wrong when he would use that point to attack conservative media outlets. Obama complained about there being a few non-liberal sources of news.
But his point was correct. Large swaths of America are either watching Fox News or they are watching CNN and MSNBC. They are either reading The Huffington Post or they are reading the Daily Caller.
Any American watching Fox on Wednesday night saw the Honorable Carry Ceremony in its entirety. But if you were watching CNN or MSNBC and happened to get up to use the bathroom at the wrong time, you wouldn’t have known it was happening at all.
Thirty years ago, every news channel would have covered this event. But not today’s liberal media, which were busy devoting yet another hour to the Russia investigation.
So Thursday morning, millions of Americans, myself included, drove to work reminded again about the sacrifices that allow us to be so comfortable, that permit us to take our freedoms for granted.
And millions of others drove to work worried about whether some Russian lawyer met with Donald Trump, Jr.
I got a little angry as I watched Pence’s poignant remarks Wednesday night about First Lieutenant Frank Salazar, Diana’s father, and First Lieutenant Hal Downes, Rick’s father. The left has been relentlessly pounding the president over the issue of children separated from their parents at the border.
But there are other children, including Diana and Rick decades ago, who are separated from their parents when their mothers and fathers are sent overseas to defend our country.
In many cases, these children are permanently separated from their parents if they happen to be the children of soldiers killed by jihadists, or children of the 36 police officers shot and killed in the line of duty so far this year, or the children of Border Patrol agents murdered while protecting our borders.
To our 24-hour media echo chamber, these American children don’t matter enough to warrant even a few minutes of coverage. And they certainly don’t merit any coverage at all if they happen to be in their mother’s womb.
We are supposed to rally to the Dreamers while is ICE abolished. We are supposed to weep for every child from Central America, while no tears are shed for Angel Moms. We are supposed to be outraged that a minor illegal immigrant was denied an abortion but not blink an eye at the hundreds of thousands of baby girls destroyed each year through abortion.
The left gets excited when it talks about “fundamentally transforming” America. But that is a big reason why Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
Millions of Americans were sick of their values being mocked. They were tired of feeling like strangers in their own country.
Progressives are always talking about compassion, empathy and tolerance. But they are very selective about who they give it to. It is during moments like this that the left’s disdain for the heroes who guarantee our freedoms becomes clear.
Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of Campaign for Working Families.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
