Just as Alabama voters are being admonished by their betters from Up North to vote against Roy Moore because the Washington Post published stories about his purported behavior forty years ago, one of that paper's most prominent writers has been forced by President Trump to admit he was fooled and published fake news.

We have a Republican president like no other. Those of us who remember cringing as President George W. Bush declined to descend to the level of his critics during the Second Iraq War and allowed himself to be demonized down to miniscule levels of public opinion support are grateful for a POTUS who fights back. We are tired of our political leaders cowering before the might of media bullies and the grandees of the cultural elite. And boy, do we have the man for that job!

Yesterday afternoon, President Trump responded on Twitter to Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, who attempted to mock Trump’s claims of a packed house in his Pensacola, Florida rally, using the “too good to check” standard when he spotted pictures showing empty seats there. In a tweet since deleted, he showed a picture of the arena with empty seats and quoted Trump’s claim “packed to the rafters”

Trump had the advantage of actually having been there and hit back hard on the same forum, Twitter, immortalzing Weigel's fake news tweet.

.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo! pic.twitter.com/XAblFGh1ob

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

Weigel was forced to apologize and explain how he was “fooled’:

Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I'd gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner. https://t.co/fQY7GMNSaD

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 9, 2017

For a reporter to admit being fooled is a bit like a surgeon admitting his hand trembles; it is not a good look.

Weigel, for those who do not remember, was a central figure in JournOlist, the invitation-only online conspiracy among progressive journalists to manipulate news coverage in their favor. He was allowed to resign from the Washington Post for that activity, only to be hired back in 2015,  once that paper become the political tool of the world’s richest (or second or third richest – depending on Amazon’s daily stock price) man, Jeff Bezos.  

This is the capstone for a catastrophic week for Trump’s opponents in the mainstream media, forced to withdraw and apologize for multiple stories attacking the POTUS.

The principle has now been firmly established that negative news about President Trump coming from his media enemies (roughly 90% of the MSM) deserves a skeptical reception. Diehard Trump-haters may still choose to believe it because they want to – so -- called confirmation bias.  But for those not actively against Trump – roughly 60 – 70% of the public – the mainstream media have lost the presumption of honesty this week.

It may well be the historic turning point in the standing of the mainstream media.