A Twitter account for the II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group did an about-face over the weekend, offering an apology for what it previously described as “aggressiveness” in slamming Fox News host Tucker Carlson online.
The hoopla began last week when Carlson responded to a speech from President Joe Biden announcing that the U.S. military is designing body armor for women, creating “maternity flight suits” and updating hairstyle requirements.
Carlson criticized what he saw as misguided priorities and the left spun that concern into an attack on U.S. servicewomen. Democrats like Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth hit back, as did the Pentagon.
Defense Department press secretary John Kirby virtue-signaled about how “diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths,” while the II MEF IG Twitter account said, “Get right before you get left, boomer.”
“We are human and what was intended as a tweet in support of our female Marines and sisters serving in uniform was clearly not aligned with our standard practices or an appropriate representation of the Marine Corps,” the account tweeted Saturday.
BLUF: We are human and what was intended as a tweet in support of our female Marines and sisters serving in uniform was clearly not aligned with our standard practices or an appropriate representation of the Marine Corps.
— II MEF Information Group (@iimigofficial) March 13, 2021
The tweet was in response to Newsmax TV host John Cardillo tweeting: “An official
@DeptofDefense @USMC account singling out and threatening an American citizen.”
Carlson was not criticizing women in the military, but the social engineering.
“So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military,” he said, in response to Biden.
“While China’s military become more masculine as it’s assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become — as Joe Biden says, more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore, since men and women no longer exist. The bottom line is, it’s out of control, and the Pentagon is going along with this. Again, this is a mockery of the U.S. military and its core mission, which is winning wars,” Carlson added.
Perhaps a little too busy, the II MEF IG Twitter account did not stop with one tweet.
“We can do better and we will collectively take a knee, review our procedures and get back in the fight,” a second tweet said. “Our focus is to train, fight and win and we have a hard time doing that without your support.”
And while they talked about planning to “take a knee,” they didn’t — the irony being that in a third tweet, the account was still talking about taking a knee.
The third tweet came in response to a social media user stressing that Carlson’s point “was that the priority should always be mission first — and the current administration is telegraphing a very different set of priorities. At no point did he say that pregnant women shouldn’t serve or couldn’t serve honorably.”
“We are human and that tweet was intended to support our female warfighters,” the tweet proclaimed. “We can do better and we will collectively take a knee, review our procedures, and get back in the fight. Our focus is to train, fight, and win.”
We are human and that tweet was intended to support our female warfighters. We can do better and we will collectively take a knee, review our procedures, and get back in the fight. Our focus is to train, fight, and win.
— II MEF Information Group (@iimigofficial) March 13, 2021
In effect, the tweet seemed to be suggesting that Carlson was right, though the person behind the keyboard didn’t seem to grasp the concept that talk begets more talk.
Here’s a sampling of some of the responses from Twitter:
President Biden talking about maternity uniforms during a nationally televised promotion of 2 female Generals was an asinine thing to discuss instead of their professional excellence.@Tucker was right. The CIC was embarrassing our military readiness.
— Jessie Jane Duff (@JessieJaneDuff) March 13, 2021
So you acknowledge that you’ve been misrepresenting to the public what Tucker said? Why is an official DoD social media channel spreading disinformation to the American people as part of a campaign to attack and smear an American journalist?
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) March 14, 2021
How about our military focus on legitimate threats to our nat’l security?
I support our military no matter what gender/branch of service, period.
But the optics of Twitter spat w/media (& those who aren’t in favor of said behavior) stinks like gas station sushi. #JustSaying— Dean (@digitaldean) March 13, 2021
No, that tweet was to attack a civilian who hosts a show. If your focus is to train, fight, and win you just took a massive L on @twitter @TuckerCarlson didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, but you probably never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
— Rob (@robertshead) March 13, 2021
Looks like your focus is to make a mockery of the military and the Marines. This is shameful and whomever wrote this should be brought up on charges under UCMJ.
What happened to this country?
How am I even reading this?— MASCUDON (@mascudon) March 14, 2021
You are going to “collectively take a knee”?
I think you just made Tucker’s point for him.As a former Marine wife who once lived abroad with our fighting forces, I am so ashamed for you.
— Mary 🇺🇸🇺🇸 🇺🇸 (@mpg25mary) March 14, 2021
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