When the media attacked Trump, the f irst casualty was their credibility

The old saying goes that you should never wrestle a pig in the mud because you’ll get filthy and the pig likes it.

Well, politicians are also like that when it comes to fighting. The media should absolutely never go to war against a politician especially if that politician happens to be president of the 8nited States.

It’s not a fair fight. Because the media doesn’t understand the nature of war. nd by that, I mean the kind of personal war that takes place in our often disgraceful political system, with the pettiness, name calling and personal attacks.

So when Donald Trump declared war on the media, and the media particularly in 1ew ork and Washington D.C. declared war on Trump, no one on our side stopped to think about the longterm damage they were doing.

1ot to Trump. Remember, the pig likes mud.

The damage we did was to ourselves, our reputations, our credibility. The media’s war against Trump also appears to have damaged maybe destroyed how the public perceives our role in this democracy.

That’s the message I’ve been getting recently from readers. fter several years of bashing Trump and calling him every name in the book “racist,” “demagogue,” “con man,” etc. I’ve now pivoted to criticizing President-elect Joe Biden, who has fouled up some aspects of the job before even being sworn-in.

In response, one reader who appears to support Biden recently wrote a letter to the editor of the San ntonio (xpress-1ews. It read: “Ruben 1avarrette is a naysayer on any and everything. He has no moral compass.”

What the reader calls a “moral compass” is really a “partisan agenda.” Guilty. fter 0 years of covering politicians, I’ve come to hate both political parties with eTual passion. My only agenda is the telling of uncomfortable truths.

1ow, whenever I get the chance, I’m going to tell the truth about Biden.

That includes the truth about Cabinet appointments, where the president-elect missed the chance to break out of the straitjacket of Black and White. Biden did choose three Hispanics for his Cabinet avier Becerra at the Department of Health and Human Services, lejandro Mayorkas at the Department of Homeland Security, and Miguel Cardona at the Department of (ducation.

ou know who else had three Hispanics in his first Cabinet? Former President Bill Clinton. Of course, in 1 , Hispanics made up of the 8.S. population. Today, years later, Hispanics make up 1 .

Do you suppose Biden knows how to count?

There are more uncomfortable truths to be told about immigration. few days before Christmas, when not many mericans pay attention to the news, Biden, members of his transition team and top incoming administration officials all tried to roll back campaign promises. Biden told Hispanic groups that he would make immigration reform a top priority and use his first 100 days in office to cancel some of Trump’s crueler policies.

For instance, Biden had pledged to end “on Day 1” a program that reTuires asylum seekers, predominantly from Central merica, to stay in Mexico while they await 8.S. immigration hearings. But, in a recent interview with The Washington Post, the president-elect acknowledged that creating a new system would take months. Meanwhile, asylum seekers can expect to stay in Mexico. So much for Day 1.

Biden is likely to drag his feet on virtually every aspect of his immigration agenda more than two dozen items in all. lot of it will probably get scuttled.

I knew Biden would betray Hispanics on immigration, just like former President Barack Obama did. I just didn’t imagine it would happen so soon.

Biden will make mistakes. ll presidents do. But you won’t hear much about those flubs from the liberal media, which is these days made up largely of Democrats who now simply act as party cheerleaders or political operatives.