On Monday, MSNBC’s military analyst, Barry R. McCaffrey, who regularly appears on the show posted a video on Twitter showing the shooting down of two Russian Mig-29s. The retired four-star general failed to notice that the footage is actually from the video game Arma 3.
The title of the video that McCaffrey reposted includes that fact. McCaffrey praised the air defense blissfully unaware of the reality of the footage. Maybe Biden’s Ministry of Truth can teach McCaffrey to determine what is false and what is true.
McCaffrey was quickly checked by the high-profile Benny Johnson, who used the opportunity to call out the blatant inequality of tech censorship. Shortly after, McCaffery deleted the tweet.
MSNBC’s “military analyst” is posting fake war videos from a video game.
Why is Left-Wing corporate media allowed to spread “misinformation” about a war, while they advocate for Censorship of Conservatives and Fact Checking of Memes? https://t.co/YDKGSkkvGV
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 16, 2022
Foreign policy expert and Washington Post columnist, Max Boot also retweeted the tweet by McCaffrey only to be scolded by Marine Corp Veteran Dan Caldwell.
And of course the self-styled military historian and so-called foreign policy “expert” @MaxBoot retweeted this fake video as well thinking it was actual combat footage. https://t.co/NlkcSkja4N pic.twitter.com/IshE2fiCVx
— Dan Caldwell 🇺🇸 (@dandcaldwell) May 16, 2022
One would expect a ‘military analyst’ and a foreign policy expert to do the bare minimum research before posting a video and claiming it is fact. McCaffrey failed to even research the title, which would provide the obvious information needed to show that the video is not authentic. McCaffery’s gaffe should be proof to MSNBC’s audience that he should be regarded more as a viewership grab than a military analyst and that there is no authenticity to MSNBC’s program.
The MSNBC production team also failed to verify their analyst’s information prior to airing, showing that the network is more interested in pushing out bulk information than they are in providing useful and factual information.
This is not the first time those on the Left have fallen for obviously false information. Notorious RINO Adam Kinzinger was fooled by a post framing comedian Sam Hyde as the Ghost of Kyiv (a hero the UKR Ministry of Defense has since admitted is a figure used to boost morale). A good rule of thumb is that if there is large media coverage of a single individual’s actions, rumors that Sam Hyde is the person responsible will spread – it appears Kinzinger was not aware of this trend.
This is how smart @AdamKinzinger is.
He fell for a Sam Hyde meme. pic.twitter.com/T1k5JhqvTz
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 26, 2022
Overall, it seems the events in Eastern Europe are being used by the media and the Democrats to score cheap views among their audience and it points to the shallowness of their coverage.