FILE- This May 2, 2017, file photo, shows the corporate signage on the headquarters building of The New York Times in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

As my RedState colleague Brad Slager reported over the weekend, there is a concerted effort among national news outlets like CNN and the New York Times to discredit Dr. Deborah Birx, who is the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s response coordinator.

The New York Times has gone after her with a particular vengeance, with journalists Noah Weiland and Maggie Haberman painting the accomplished and well-respected doctor as nothing more than a puppet of President Trump’s in a piece published last Friday:

Dr. Birx, who has built a well of bipartisan admiration in her years as a health official, has more recently accommodated herself to the political winds with the kind of presidential flattery that Mr. Trump demands from aides.

“He has been so attentive to the details and the data, and his ability to analyze and integrate data has been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues,” she gushed in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Wednesday.

[…]

Mr. Trump and several White House officials view Dr. Fauci with some level of skepticism, believing he tends too much to his own public persona and has gone “rogue” on messaging. Dr. Birx, they think, is more willing to be patient with the president’s interruptions and theorizing about medicine.

Here’s how Haberman framed the piece in a tweet:

An astute Trump adviser once described the president as "turning" people so they start to adopt his views, in a binary Trump sees as him vs media. Some fear Dr. Deborah Birx is the latest example. @noahweiland and me https://t.co/Y6QNWvxZVC

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 28, 2020

So with their baseless attacks on Dr. Birx in mind, imagine everyone’s shock and surprise (not) to find the New York Times just days later accusing Trump of … a war on women because some of his criticisms in recent days have been against prominent female political figures like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D):

In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump is on the attack against prominent women who are trying to help lead the US through the crisis. By @anniekarni. https://t.co/6k5gwDQgJt

— Edward Wong (@ewong) March 31, 2020

Wow. Double standards anyone?

You have the gall to publish this when your newspaper and reporters are attacking Dr. Deborah Birx. Unbelievable. https://t.co/FC21W69QJo

— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) March 31, 2020

Not only that, but as I have noted before along with many others, Trump is an equal opportunity attacker – it’s not about someone’s gender or race. It’s about disagreement, especially when they attack first. It’s that simple:

2) Trump also reserved his strongest attack for a guy in his own party, Thomas Massie.

Lastly, Trump went out of his way – surprisingly – to praise….. Rachel Maddow.

Love him or hate him, Trump is an equal opportunity offender.

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) March 31, 2020

Beyond all that, as a woman I find it disgusting that the media just automatically assumes Trump is criticizing these women simply because they are women – as though they haven’t done anything worthy of the criticism. In Whitmer’s case especially, some of the criticisms of her handling of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in her state were warranted, and had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman.

It’s just tiresome to continue to have to remind folks in the media in 2020 that just because a male Republican politician criticizes a female Democratic politician it doesn’t automatically make him a “sexist” anymore than the left-wing MSM attacking a female Republican political figure makes them sexists (although it does make them hypocrites).

It’s time for national news outlets like the New York Times to drop this insulting double standard once and for all.