Yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence was back home in Indiana, eager to be on hand to see his Indianapolis Colts retire the number of their legendary quarterback Peyton Manning. Karen Pence was even decked out in her Manning jersey, ready to cheer on the Colts against the San Francisco 49ers.

However, about twenty 49ers decided to hijack Manning’s day. The decided after a week which saw countless cops race into a torrent of gunfire, four special forces troops killed and a nation in grief, to once again take a knee against the National Anthem.

The Vice President of the United States wasn’t about to let that horrible call go unchallenged. Furious, he left the game.

I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.

— Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017

Keep in mind this is a guy who greeted with good cheer being lectured and chastised by the cast of Hamilton in the days after the election. But a deliberate disrespect of the flag, the flag that will now lay across the coffins of those four fallen warriors, was too much.

Today’s Word from the Democratic Machine: “Stunt”

The Left has been quick to label Pence’s stand as a “stunt.” (Do they consider it a “stunt” when a fan walks away from the NFL as they’re doing in droves?) In fact, “stunt” is the word du jour. CNN’s ace objector to all things Trump Chris Crizzilla says “Donald Trump just used Mike Pence for a publicity stunt.”  MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Salon, Deadspin, to name just a few, also branded Pence’s act a “stunt.” Congressman and sometime comic Adam Schiff got into the act:

After all the scandals involving unnecessarily expensive travel by cabinet secretaries, how much taxpayer money was wasted on this stunt? https://t.co/R4SFCTCMUJ

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 8, 2017

(A Democrat complaining about wasted taxpayer dollars. I told you the guy was a comedian. And I guess he missed DCNF’s report on the private travel expenses of Obama cabinet officials. But I digress.)

Just Google “Pence National Anthem.” Stunt, stunt, stunt is all you’ll see.

Remember the Jim Caviezel show Person of Interest? Each episode, the “Machine” would pop out a social security number of someone who was about to kill or be killed. Listening to the media and their elected partners in grime today, I am even further convinced of what I’ve long suspected.

There is a Democratic Machine. Each day, the Democratic Machine pops out a word or phrase. And that is the word or phrase that media must use or their credentials are revoked. “Russia collusion,” “unstable” and “alt-right” are but some examples. (“Racist,” of course, is dispensed automatically on a daily basis.)

The Daily Wire saw the Democratic Machine at work last year in the coverage of Trump’s GOP acceptance speech. It cited eight major news organizations and — no surprise, their chosen candidate Hillary Clinton — describing the speech as “dark.” The Democratic Machine liked that one so much, it still generates it every now and then.

Grabien caught it in this year’s coverage of Trump’s DACA decision. The Democratic Machine spit out the word “cruel,” and onto the MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, NBC, Univision teleprompters it went. 

Group Action Misses the Real Action

When 96% of campaign dollars from the media went into Hillary Clinton’s coffers, bias is going to dominate media coverage. But this goes beyond even group think to group action without thinking.

Let’s get back to what’s happening with Pence. The media is like a crowd doing the Wave, circling around the stadium, ignoring the real action on the field. The talking head sees the talking head on the channel next to him jump up and toss his hands in the air, and automatically he’s out of his seat too. Round and round it goes, louder and louder.

Meanwhile, on the field there is an unfurled flag, a flag that’s on the shoulders of our servicemen and women, a flag that covers the caskets of those who’ve fallen, a flag that represents the idea “from the many, one,” a flag that insists “all men are created equal.” It’s a flag that makes no claim to perfection, aiming only seeking a “more perfect Union.”

Witnessing the disrespect of that flag wounds the heart. Especially in a week already so raw, in a season already so difficult with hurricanes and the Vegas horror. This was no knee to the turf. This was a cleat on the chest. The Vice President of the United States made a symbolic act that echoes the very real act of NFL football fans turning away from the sport. The anger is no stunt.

Perhaps the media should spend less time parroting the words of the Democratic Machine and more time listening to the voice of Americans.