Americans who still trust the news media watched in disgust as the Washington Post published explosive claims that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth personally ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected narco-boat — a headline-grabbing charge that painted our military as lawless and our leaders as bloodthirsty. The Post’s reporting relied heavily on anonymous sources and sensationalized a chaotic battlefield decision into a tidy narrative designed to inflame rather than inform.
Within hours the administration pushed back hard, calling the Post’s version false and saying the story did not reflect what actually happened; even more damning for the media narrative, the White House later clarified that Hegseth had authorized Admiral Frank Bradley to conduct kinetic strikes and that the operational commander made the decision on follow-on force — not a rogue command from the Pentagon’s top civilian. Journalists who rushed to moralize before facts were available handed the public a distorted picture and then scrambled when the administration’s account diverged from their script.
That doesn’t mean the episode is without serious questions — the so-called “double-tap” strikes and the undeniable loss of life demand scrutiny and transparency from the Department of Defense and Congress. Critics and legal scholars have leapt to conclusions about war crimes, but many of those critiques assume facts the public has not been shown, and they ignore the reality that the United States is confronting transnational narco-terror networks that traffic fentanyl and murder Americans every day. The rush to indict Hegseth in op-eds and cable panels smells less of sober legal analysis and more of partisan grandstanding.
Meanwhile, the posture of the media reveals the real scandal: an industry that prefers scandal to substance and anonymous outrage to accountable reporting. The admiral at the center of the mission, Frank Bradley, has been repeatedly defended by administration officials and stressed as the operational decision-maker, undercutting any simplistic version that a single line from a civilian leader turned lawful targeting into a war crime. If reporters want the public to trust them again, they should demand declassified evidence or testify under oath rather than toss around incendiary charges.
Patriots don’t salute every headline, and we shouldn’t abandon our military to the mob just because a headline traffics in the right kind of outrage. The American people deserve two things: the truth about what happened, and a full accounting that respects due process and the realities of fighting criminal networks at sea. Conservative readers should demand a careful congressional inquiry that examines classified video and testimony — not prosecutors and pundits wielding anonymous tips as if they were gospel.
Make no mistake: the cartels and their state backers have waged a soft war on our country by flooding our streets with deadly drugs, and commanders on the scene have a duty to protect the homeland. But defending that mission requires clear rules, accountable leadership, and reporting that tells the whole story instead of manufacturing a scandal to advance a political agenda. The real failure here is the media’s habit of reflexive condemnation; if journalists want credibility, they must stop cheering for outrage and start doing their jobs.
