Dear Mr. Friedman,

I read with disgust, your totally unsubstantiated and blatantly political attack on Secretary Mike Pompeo this morning. This open letter is to not only set some things straight, but also tune you up a bit, as it appears that since you got out of J-School, you have been wrong about just about everything that comes out of your mouth. There’s even a book devoted to your long train of loud, harsh polemics. Your nasty, ill-considered, personal attack on a great American like Secretary Mike Pompeo, is just more of the same.

First of all, the facts. The facts are, former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch wasn’t fired due to any smear campaign. She was fired because she was working at cross purposes with the President of these United States, who she was supposed to be representing. She was not supposed to be opposing, much less badmouthing him to foreign leaders. This has been confirmed by the testimony of senior State Department officials who had to work with her. You are entitled to your opinions, but not your own facts.

Your strident language comparing her firing to being abandoned, broken and bleeding on the battlefield, merely demonstrates just how far real journalism has descended into the morass of blatant political partisanship. Yovanovitch is now “a diplomat in residence” at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, a nice little sinecure far removed from any battlefield.

Let’s now address your hypocrisy. Where was your outrage, sir, when President Obama fired every single one of the Ambassadors appointed by President Bush? Every. Single. One. Where were you, sir? Or, does your ethical outrage only come into play when a situation affords you the opportunity to bash President Trump?

I also find it ethically interesting that you work for the New York Times, a paper that, on more than one occasion, has been the purveyor of outright lies and the target of civil suits because it insisted on advancing its leftist agenda. I also find it interesting that you mewl about ethics, when you work for a newspaper that all but denied the Holocaust as it was going on.

You, sir, are a cad, a fraud, a poseur, masquerading as a legitimate journalist and writing for a paper long determined to be fit only for birdcage liners. Were this an earlier era and you had said about me what you’ve said about Secretary Pompeo, well, Mister Friedman, let’s just say our Seconds would have already arranged the details.

Good Day.

Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters. Ford is also a 1980 Graduate of The United States Military Academy, though did not graduate nearly as high in class standing as Secretary Pompeo.

Follow him on Twitter: @MikeFor10394583

You can find his other Red State work here.