by Rob Natelson
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the closing of the Global Engagement Center, a State Department agency that became part of the federal government’s censorship apparatus.
The person President Barack Obama put in charge of this censorship operation was Rick Stengel. Stengel claimed he was just countering “disinformation”—a word leftists use to describe speech they don’t like. But there probably was more to it. He’s reported as saying in 2018, “I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
Stengel had a record of speading disinformation of his own. As managing editor of Time Magazine in 2011, he authored the notorious cover story that smeared the Constitution and the Founding Fathers with half-truths and falsehoods.
My 2011 article correcting Stengel’s propaganda was published on this website—and went viral. You can read it here. I think it’s a pretty good antidote to nonsense the Left continues to disseminate against the Founders and our Constitution.
