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Editor-in-chief of the national memo. and syria, the first step down, a dangerous road. joe, thank you for being here. >> good to be with you. >> we were talking in the break that this whole idea that bill clinton was doing wag the dog when he attacked -- when he launched missile strikes into afghanistan, you object to even the notion of that. >> well, i think anybody who wants to say that should say it to the face of general anthony zippy and the other national security officials who approved those strikes a long with president clinton. in other words, anybody who says that is saying that the...

Administration to get the media on their side, isn't it? >> yeah, is there a long history of it. ronald reagan, the panama with george bush senior. these small incursions that will, you know -- they're not massive employments of troops, but they'll, you know, grab the news cycle for four or five days, maybe a couple weeks. and so you know, you showed that clip of the first gulf war. but it's really the second one that goes down in history. that was almost a two-year collapse of really what the media should do in the united states, which is tell the truth. that was really kind of a lap dog chap...

Way any other president has. in modern times. or ever. but the press seems anxious to drag him into the mainstream. so when there is a glimmer, when there is a glimpse of him doing something normal, they kind of pounce on it, right? so the narrative is, he had this epiphany. he saw these images of these children, and sort of -- he was like this grinch-type figure. his heart grew three times. that was the storyline. there is projection. because that's how a president is supposed to act, so we're going to pretend trump is normal. but it doesn't add up, right? because we already know, he's no the...

Nothing newful. 24 hours later, that was their m.o. change the story, change the lead. >> we can't afford a war. >> we're not going to have a war. we're going to have the appearance of a war. >> in the 1997 movie, "wag of the dog," the white house conjures up a war to distract attention from the president's sex scandal. to some, the movie seemed especially prescient when bill clinton ordered air strikes in afghanistan and sudan while in the midst of the monica lewinsky scandal. once again, a president is in trouble at home, this over his ties to russia and flailing in the polls. launches a mil...

United states is the moment when they first use american military. >> that is a decisive use of american power. >> we not only took out a syrian air force pace base, we took out a terrorist air strip. >> that montage from media matters was just a small sampling of the media's fawning praise of donald trump's air strikes in syria. joining me now, eric bolart and joe conson. thank you for beinger who. dan rather had some worst and thoughts about this whole thing. and he wrote in part, the number of members of the press who have lauded the actions last night as presidential's concerning, war must...