We've seen it time and again, yet the ease with which a US president can wipe the media clean of criticism against his administration never ceases to amaze me. Just identify an external threat. Even the press that's hostile to the president has to along with it.

In America's polarized politics, media that's for or against the president alienates half the available viewers. But media that focuses on some claimed external threat gets everyone listening. All the president's bad news disappears, while his steadfast stand against some foreign danger looks like heroism in the public's eye.

I'm not picking on Trump here. Obama did it before him, and Bush and Clinton did it before that. What I'm pointing out is the myth of the 'free press' in the West. While the media may be financially independent from government, governments can so easily bend it to their will that effectively the media isn't free at all.