Nolte: Washington Post Prints Op-Ed from Turkey’s Erdogan, World’s Top Jailer of Journalists

Turkey Erdogan European Union EU
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Between CNN winning an Excellence in Journalism Award for a town hall event where a rape victim was booed and the Washington Post handing over its opinion pages to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we now know that all those lofty journalistic platitudes the media keep lecturing the rest of us about — you know, truth, decency, and concern for the safety and well being of the media — are a phony pose.

For the second time in six months, the far-left Washington Post has offered op-ed space to Erdogan, a man infamous for jailing journalists.

What’s more, this time the Post offered up this space on the eve of Turkish elections, which means the Post is perfectly okay with foreigners meddling in a sovereign country’s elections so long as it’s the Post who’s the foreigner.

Apparently, the Post believes democracy dies in darkness, but the 68 journalists Turkey has jailed will do just fine in that same darkness.

So what happened to all those lofty journalistic principles? What happened to the establishment media’s never-ending concern for the freedom and well-being of the world’s journalists?

Well, if your country jails 68 journalists, we now know that you can still win love and free campaign advertising from the far-left Post if you are willing to say what the Post wants to hear.

For instance, if you condemn *wink-wink* Western politicians for not condemning Islamophobia enough, if you condemn Western civilization in general, suddenly those 68 imprisoned journalists aren’t all that important to a disgraced propaganda outlet like the Post.

And that is exactly what Erdogan did:

After attacks by the Islamic State, there was no shortage of Western politicians and commentators blaming the most deplorable acts of terrorism on Islam and Muslims — people whose opinions are very much aligned with the Australian senator Fraser Anning.

In the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, the West has certain responsibilities. Western societies and governments must reject the normalization of racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, which has been on the rise in recent years. It is crucial to establish that such twisted ideologies, such as anti-Semitism, amount to crimes against humanity. Moreover, we must shed light on all aspects of what happened and fully understand how the terrorist became radicalized and his links to terrorist groups to prevent future tragedies. Finally, all Western leaders must learn from the courage, leadership and sincerity of New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to embrace Muslims living in their respective countries.

My guess is that the Post’s favorite part was Erdogan’s lie about Fraser Anning, the Australian senator who blamed the New Zealand mosque massacres on Muslim immigration. At the time, though, his outrageous statement was widely condemned.

But Erdogan didn’t bother to mention that.

And if you are looking for a political favor from the Washington Post, that is exactly the kind of deceit that will result in your being forgiven for jailing 68 journalists.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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