There was, over the last week, a sort of mass hysteria about our own military participating in our own celebration of our own Independence on the streets of our own Capitol.

There are certainly those who would object to the term hysteria, but if you look at the compilation put together by Newsbusters, I think you'll find the term hard to avoid, particularly with the benefit of hindsight.



That is unavoidably hysterical. Instead of doom, we got fireworks, fly-overs, and even furry Sesame Street Muppets.

CNN must be so disappointed.

I wrote about the media's fanatical dedication to hysteria here, before the event. Now that the Fourth is over, and none of what was fretted so furiously took place, you can bet they won't review their coverage and find it objectionable. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Part of that is because the press do not seem to understand where criticism and praise fall on such a topic. MSNBC's Joy Reid compared President Trump using military display unfavorably to France doing so on their own Bastille Day. Why? Because they were celebrating throwing off tyranny, not celebrating tyranny.

Her argument, which ignores the premise of our own holiday (ie. throwing off tyranny) also presumes something that is manifestly and fundamentally untrue. She and the media and the folks you see on Twitter who talked about our own display as some petty habit of tin-pot dictators don't understand that Trump isn't one.

You see, they will object to that. They will say he is "fascinated" with or "admires" dictators, and that therefore their objection is valid. But his admirations are utterly irrelevant because of the very thing we celebrate.

When I say "Donald Trump is no Kim Jong Un" it doesn't matter what you think of him as a person, because the reason he isn't a despot is he can't be. You can't do that here. That's the very thing we celebrate on Independence Day.

That celebration in D.C. was for everyone, and Trump had an obligation as President to make it about everyone. And in his speech, and throughout the event, that's how it was. It was a celebration. There were flags. There were fireworks. There was music. People ate cheeseburgers and sang along and shook the hands of our military men and women and admired the tools those heroes use to secure our right and ability to listen to music and watch fireworks and eat hot dogs.

The fundamental problem with the media's hysteria on this was their inability to see the forest for the Trump.

We don't have dictators, and our troops don't attack our own citizens. The hysteria uncovered by Newsbusters was just a failure to appreciate what this country is, and what the holiday is about.