While driving around doing errands yesterday, I happened to catch Fox News Sunday on SiriusXM. As I listened, Chris Wallace proved once again, he is not quite the journalist his Old Man was. He was interviewing Larry Kudlow, Director of the(se) United States Economic Council and President Trump’s senior economic advisor. The topic was the recently imposed tariffs on Chinese goods entering America.

The interview was quite standard until Wallace asked how much longer the President is willing to continue with escalating tariffs. This is a piece of information the Chinese would absolutely love to have. In military parlance, it would be a CCIR (Commander’s Critical Information Requirement). This particular information would let the Chinese know exactly how long they would need to gut it out, before the(se) United States would fold.

Kudlow, being a good Presidential advisor and refusing to assume authority not his own, forthrightly deferred back to President, stating that that decision rightly belongs to the POTUS, thus giving Wallace—and the Chinese, gornisht.

I understand that a senior administration official must be temperate in all responses, unless specifically directed by POTUS to do otherwise. However, there’s a big part of me who would have loved to hear **

Chris, you idiot; Do you really think it’s a prudent move to disclose our negotiations timetable to the Chinese? Are you really that stupid? Have you ever really had any responsibility for other folks’ lives & livelihoods? I’ll bet you think it’s a great idea, just like President Obama, to tell the Taliban and ISIS, what our end dates were, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Your father would be ashamed.

I understand that journalists must ask the tough questions and keep the American people informed. However, sometimes (OK quite often) it can be difficult to determine if a “journalist” is unpatriotic, or simply stupid. Chris Wallace made it really difficult yesterday morning.

**I was thinking all of this and had these same thoughts confirmed by a fellow West Pointer, initials, RAM, so he gets some credit here.

Mike Ford is a retired Infantry Officer who writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.

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