Last Friday evening, Salon posted a link to its exposé of Sen. Tom Cotton, whom Salon claimed had campaigned on his nonexistent experience as a U.S. Army Ranger.
Sen. Tom Cotton campaigned on his "experience as an Army Ranger" — but he didn't have any https://t.co/DGuMmLJKo2
— Salon (@Salon) January 23, 2021
Volunteered to be an Army Ranger, fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, earned the Bronze Star … what’s the problem?
In his first run for Congress, Cotton leaned heavily on his military service, claiming to have been “a U.S. Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan,” and, in a campaign ad, to have “volunteered to be an Army Ranger.” In reality, Cotton was never part of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the elite unit that plans and conducts joint special military operations as part of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
Rather, Cotton attended the Ranger School, a two-month-long, small-unit tactical infantry course that literally anyone in the military is eligible to attend. Soldiers who complete the course earn the right to wear the Ranger tab — a small arch that reads “Ranger” — but in the eyes of the military, that does not make them an actual Army Ranger.
Pretty sure the Rangers would disagree with you.
— Jean Marie Oshima (@5heartrating) January 23, 2021
I was an infantry and special forces officer who graduated from Ranger School, and many of my friends were in the Ranger regiment. I can only chuckle and shake my head at how pedantic this article is. Of all the stories to write, you chose to publish this one @Salon ?
— Alex Pruden (@apruden08) January 24, 2021
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Here’s AG Hamilton with a takedown:
So I was mostly going to ignore this because it seemed rather obvious this was a partisan hit from Salon and some Democrats, but now more mainstream outlets are picking it up. (1/)https://t.co/xdOvyrbwIL
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
Undisputed facts:
1) Tom Cotton had deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
2) Cotton was honorably discharged with multiple accommodations, including a Bronze Star.
3) Cotton finished Ranger school and earned a Ranger tab.— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
Salon, and some Democrats, have accused him of misleading regarding his military service by having literature that has said he "volunteered to be an Army Ranger" even though he never served in the 75th Ranger Regiment.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
I will leave the specific debate over whether the term Ranger should be used for those who complete Ranger school to members of the military, but the reality is that the term has commonly been used that way for years. Including by press outlets (& even some Salon authors!)
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
A lot of people have pointed out that many news outlets referred to the first female graduates of Ranger school as Rangers repeatedly. https://t.co/6ny6ctTMV1https://t.co/epSbz8MjTL
Even the Army website did so:https://t.co/2LbkCt4AhU
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
Cotton never claimed to have served in the 75th Ranger Regiment. He's been very upfront about the specifics of his service. His service record is impressive regardless of title. In other words, this is pretty clearly a dumb attempt at a partisan smear.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 24, 2021
The Washington Free Beacon decided to look into Salon’s story and found some funny business going on.
Update: This was fairly obviously a planted hit piece. And now we know the source because the Salon reporter behind it BCC'd her in his email to Cotton's team asking for comment and she mistakenly replied to them.https://t.co/w0hmUFIkwF
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 25, 2021
Oops.
Something funny happened when @SenTomCotton's aides received a request for comment from intrepid Salon reporter @SollenbergerRC.
Via @CAndersonMOhttps://t.co/2d9Wr5rWN5
— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 25, 2021
In his email request, Sollenberger included a link to a Google drive containing video clips of Cotton allegedly stealing valor. Access to the drive was controlled by a woman identified as Michelle Pettigrew, who asked Cotton’s communications director, “Do you want me to make this public?” Moments later, Pettigrew followed up: “Sorry, I meant to send this to someone else!”
Pettigrew did not respond to a request for comment. Salon executive editor Andrew O’Hehir told the Free Beacon that its reporting processes are “proprietary information.”
Pettigrew is a principal at Original Sources, a San Francisco-based research firm that has successfully placed “investigative stories” everywhere from the New York Times to the New Yorker and the Washington Post, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The Free Beacon decided to look into Pettigrew to see how she measured up:
One of the first employees at the online-auction company Onsale, Pettigrew struck gold—literally—when she married her boss, Onsale cofounder and CEO Jerry Kaplan.
While Cotton was serving in the lowly 101st Airborne in Iraq and Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, Kaplan and Pettigrew were busy renovating their multimillion-dollar San Francisco mansion—adding an outdoor swimming pool, a life-sized chess set, a custom-designed chicken coop, and a “farmer’s-market-inspired edible garden enclosed by a white fence” to the Georgian colonial.
Salon reporter includes his oppo source as a bcc on request for comment to Tom Cotton's office, and she replies all giving whole thing away.
Impressively makes their lame "U.S. Ranger" hit piece even more of a dud.
Must read stuff from @CAndersonMO: https://t.co/sNUE0upHfU
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) January 25, 2021
Holy shit- LOL.
— Dr. Sleve McDichael (@SeahawkBurrrton) January 25, 2021
What a hack
— Jack Dorsey loves MyPillow (@screwjackdorsey) January 25, 2021
The dirty little secret that most of these "reporters " are little more than stenographers for shadowy groups like this. They push these phony stories for max damage through sites like Salon to legitimize them.
— L (@lawyerkev) January 25, 2021
Salon called these women Rangers for completing Ranger school.https://t.co/lzTLkTtItr
— Cheeseburger George (@CheeseburgerGe1) January 25, 2021
Imagine that.
all this did….was make me like Tom Cotton more..and more
— EMM (@emmemm77) January 25, 2021
Seriously. Every mention of it was like “Cotton did all these incredibly brave and valorous things as a soldier but even though he completed Ranger school and wears the tab, he never blah blah blah.” Saddest hit piece ever.
— Chris (@chriswithans) January 25, 2021
* * *
Update:
Cotton responds with the same story he’s always told:
I graduated from Ranger School and I wore the Ranger Tab in combat with the 101st Airborne.
This isn't about my service–it's about my politics. pic.twitter.com/BdPdsxYmmj
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 26, 2021
Related:
‘Story is officially dead’: Dr. Fauci comments torpedo CNN and ‘source’ for vaccine rollout hit piece https://t.co/n0ebNCG577
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) January 21, 2021
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