North blamed the media rather than the enemy for losing wars.

Evidence

North persisted in blaming the American media for failing to support the troops—for neglecting to cover the heroes’ welcome they received in Iraq and focusing instead on the looting, “the destruction of ‘cultural sites,’” and problems getting water and electricity up and running again. All this seemed “grievously unfair to these boys-turned-men who had fought so hard and sacrificed so much.” To make matters worse, the media was implying that US soldiers died for nothing, a technique “perfected during Vietnam,” he maintained. Vietnam wasn’t lost during Tet ’68; it was lost “in the pages of America’s newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses—and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington.” For those who claimed to support the troops but not the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, North had nothing but contempt. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 489

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘stab-in-the-back’ framing of Vietnam lost on the home front is the same logic Trump-era critique of elites and media would later amplify in the wider Republican base.