The progressive Left in this America now openly hates our country and wants us to be ashamed to be Americans.  The strategy seems to include targeting various identity groups such as blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, feminists, and any other collective subgroup of Americans and fanning the flames of grievance.

Even when lying is necessary.

Daniel J. Flynn, who has written a book about Harvey Milk, the San Francisco homosexual rights icon who was assassinated by a deranged fellow member of the Board of Supervisors, exposes the mendacious efforts of the New York Times and CNN to slur the United States Navy, which has honored Milk, a Navy veteran, by naming an impressive ship after him.

A model of the USNS Harvey Milk.
YouTube screen grab via The American Spectator.

Flynn writes in The American Spectator:

The military naming a ship after a gay-rights icon that it forced from its ranks because of his homosexuality makes for a tempting story. That it is false did not stop the most powerful media outlets in the United States from reporting it this month.

"The Navy made Harvey Milk resign for being gay," the Washington Post headline informed. "Now they're going to name a ship after him." A CNN story held that "in 1955, after the Navy officially questioned him about his sexual orientation, he was made to resign with the rank of lieutenant junior grade." The New York Times claimed, "Harvey Milk was questioned about his sexuality and forced to resign."

This did not happen. Nothing like it happened.

In researching the slain city supervisor's life for Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco I came across Milk's honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy, dated July 23, 1955, roughly four years after he followed the example of his parents by joining. Harvey Milk trained as a deep-sea diver and patrolled the waters off North Korea during the Forgotten War. A copy of the document in my possession and available in the San Francisco Public Library for the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, or any other journalistic enterprise to examine notes "honest and faithful service."

Why let the truth spoil an opportunity to vilify the United States military?  This is an example of what journalists call a story that is "too good to check."

And in their haste, these media outlets are also slurring Harvey Milk, a man whose courage as a Navy diver off North Korea's coast is undeniable.  I guess he is just collateral damage.