I have a confession.

I have a bad habit of occasionally trolling Russia Today (RT) on twitter when they lapse into their frequently anti-American tweets posing as news. I do it not so much thinking I’m reaching someone there, since it’s probably a bot, but to niggle a bit at their sword-carriers who defend their faith, and to hopefully make them think.

Well, yesterday, Russia Today flipped a hissy over a statement from Andrew Lack. Lack was just sworn in as the head of the BBG or Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is in charge of an agency with a $700 million budget and oversees United States government-supported civilian international news media such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Asia. BBG is considered an independent agency and is not a part of the government.

One of the problems, particularly under the Obama regime, is the failure to support American interests through media elsewhere in the world (never mind here). So other countries and organizations, some of which are hostile to America, like RT are having success pushing propaganda in that vacuum in the war of ideas.

“We are facing a number of challenges from entities like Russia Today which is out there pushing a point of view, the Islamic State in the Middle East and groups like Boko Haram, “ Lack said. “But I firmly believe that this agency has a role to play in facing those challenges.”

For whatever else Lack may be or ‘lack’, that’s a fascinating statement.

RT immediately called it an “international scandal” that the head of the “US State Media” should make such a statement. They even started their own hashtag #Newsisnotterror. Of course, Lack had not called them terrorists, but said they were a ‘challenge’. On the face of it, that is certainly true in the war of ideas to which Lack was making reference.

But on a deeper level that grouping may not be so off.

Russia Today is the state media arm of the Kremlin, it has sometimes gone to absurd lengths to push propaganda, and has been called out on the air by its own people for promoting lies. Liz Wahl, who reported for RT, quit after deciding she just couldn’t take the lies anymore. In doing so, she revealed the blatant anti-American slant as policy in the newsroom. She noted for example that RT journalists were told to push Occupy stories as much as they could. RT has also promoted stories about Occupy’s brother Anonymous and now, of course, evil American racism, with the Black Lives Matter/Ferguson crew. Just like leftist organizations here, RT has been pimping everything that it could to promote chaos or revolution, and to promote anti-Americanism amongst its mostly young American audience.

When I read and was amused by RT’s hissy fit, I couldn’t help teasing them on twitter. Of course, I then got a predictable response from defending “social justice warriors”.

His profile:

His comment favorited by this character:

Actually, only two responses, which makes me wonder if Russia is running out of rubles.

But it’s interesting isn’t it? This connection between those who would seek to bring down America from within and the state media arm of the Kremlin.

Oh I almost forgot, RT claimed that someone came to their defense:

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki does not agree with the newly-appointed chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), who put RT on the same challenge list as ISIS and Boko Haram.

“Would the US government put those three in the same category? No, we wouldn’t,” Psaki said at a briefing on Friday answering a questing posed by RT’s Gayane Chichakyan, related to the comments made by BBG head Andrew Lack.

While RT, typically, overstates the defense, it is rather interesting that in the war of ideas, the Obama State Department says anything at all to defend RT.

Alignments are interesting things…