Gabbard’s rhetoric infuriates Rogin, Keilar, and Bash because it strays from their script for what is acceptable debate on U.S. foreign policy. Their… - Kevin Gosztola

Yet, the establishment news media is largely uninterested in listening to Gabbard attempt to persuade voters that the U.S. should quit waging wars to overthrow governments.

Establishment Democrats are engaged in a concerted effort to smear and undermine journalism that examines any of their preferred 2020 presidential candidates. The effort aims to enforce conformity in the same manner that Democratic Party leaders coerced supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders into lining up behind Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. The most egregious example is the targeting of award-winning investigative journalist David Sirota, who produced a comprehensive report on former Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke’s congressional voting record. Four articles were published on January 3 by liberal pundits... specifically singled out Sirota’s journalism, despite the fact that the second largest newspaper in Texas, the Houston Chronicle, published an editorial recognizing he had raised valid questions about the state’s oil economy.

Gabbard has persistently called attention to the war in Syria. She traveled to Aleppo and Damascus in January 2017 to see some of the devastation Syrians have endured since 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad invited her to a meeting, and she accepted. “Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering,” Gabbard declared. Supporters of the Syrian war—the same people who do not want President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops—seized upon Gabbard’s meeting with Assad to discredit her, and it has fueled the backlash among Western media pundits to her decision to run for president. Yet, in spite of a smear campaign encouraged by the political establishment, Gabbard has not backed down from protesting U.S. support for terrorists in Syria.