Michael Gaynor
Is the liberal media deliberately shilling for the far left or blinded by Trumpphobia to its misdeeds?
By Michael Gaynor
The posturing of media personalities embarrassed by President Trump's election success and opportunistic politicians is not only galling, but dangerous, especially when they misrepresent what President Trump actually said and pretend that the counter-demonstrators were pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi.
These days the liberal media establishment is hell bent on convincing the public that it was right when it insisted that Donald Trump was not only unfit to be President, but incapable of being elected. Its goal is to destroy President Trump, so it tells the truth (but not always the whole truth) only when that truth fits its anti-Trump agenda.
When called to testify, a witness is required to swear (or affirm) to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before being permitted to testify.
That is as it should be.
Leftist media personalities do not swear (or affirm) when they "report" the news or opine of it. Often they deny or ignore what is true to promote the anti-Trump/pro-Progressive agenda shamelessly.
For example, they insist that President Trump equated Nazism and white racism with the violence perpetrated by counter-demonstrators in Charlotteville, Virginia last weekend.
President Trump did not.
President Trump stated that both sides were at fault, and the videos prove him right.
President Trump called for love instead of opining on relative fault.
Instead of asking President Trump about it, his media enemies vilified him for daring to speak inconvenient truth.
Perhaps it was impolitic of President Trump to mention that some counter-demonstrators were at fault too, especially since an apparently innocent one of them was killed and none of the demonstrators was killed.
But disregarding the wrongs of the counter-demonstrators and pretending with the Far Left that all of the counter-demonstrators were flawless persons would be wrong.
It's like blaming Nazi Germany for invading Poland and omitting to mention that Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union had made a deal to divide Poland and the Soviet Union invaded Poland a couple of weeks later. Since Hitler proceeded to invade the Soviet Union and Stalin joined the Allies, the truth about what happened to Poland is not generally appreciated in the United States. Nevertheless, it is the truth and should be known, not dropped from history.
The motto of The New York Times is "All the news that's fit to print."
Under truth in advertising principles, it should be revised to "All the news that fits our agenda" and both The New York Times and the Washington Post should use it.
Yesterday, a college classmate, obviously outraged with the liberal media coverage of President Trump's remarks about the demonstration and counter-demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, emailed me as follows:
"Please write an article in defense of the President. I would suggest a title such as: 'Believe the Alt Left, or Believe Your Eyes?'
"The LEFT arrived armed with weapons, wearing gas masks, boiling for a fight. If the white nationals had just congregated and marched and been ignored, none of this would have happened. Didn't it go that way in Skokie, ILL some time ago?
"The LEFT can do whatever it wants. Of course, I don't approve of neo-Nazism, but I resent the destruction of these monuments. Perhaps this latest outrage, the car murder, has converted you, though?
"Trump spoke the truth. There is blame on all sides. Apparently, the truth doesn't matter anymore."
When the truth doesn't matter anymore, we are doomed.
The whole truth mattered to President Trump, and he would not be intimidated.
My college classmate is right that "Trump spoke the truth" and "There is blame on all sides."
The liberal media and the Left are pretending that the counter-demonstrators were wholly innocent. Some of them were, but others of them surely were not. Watch the video tapes!
The media and the Far Left are horrified that President Trump told the whole truth and not nearly satisfied that he did not immediately explicitly condemn the neo-Nazis, Klan and white racists as a result of the events in Charlottesvile last weekend.
It is generally better to learn from history than to repeat it, and recalling what happened in Skokie, Illinois in the late 1970's is very much in order.
An outrageously provocative Nazi demonstration in Skokie in 1978 was met with shouting instead of violence and fizzled.
Joe Winkler's article, titled "When the Nazis came to Skokie" (www.jta.org/2013/06/20/news-opinion/the-telegraph/nazis-marching-through-skokie), put the event in context, as follows:
"In 1977, the leader of the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Frank Collin, announced a march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill. While a neo-Nazi march would be controversial under any circumstances, the fact that one out of six people in Skokie were Holocaust survivors made it even more provocative. Chicago authorities took steps to prevent it, including requiring the NSPA to post $350,000 worth of liability insurance in case any damage occurred. Authorities also banned the display of Nazi images, explaining that the violence that might have been incited overrode free speech protections.
"The dispute drew national attention. After the march was initially cancelled, the ACLU took up the case at the urging of Jewish lawyer Joseph Burton, who defended the NSPA's right to freedom of speech and assembly. Victor Rosenblum, a professor of law at Northwestern University and past chairman of the Anti-Defamation League's Chicago branch, made the counter-argument: 'The Nazis' march in paraphernalia is a reminder of the most destructive movement in history. They stand for the destruction and wiping out of human beings. This is not constitutionally protected.'
"An initial court ruling said the NSPA could march in uniform but not display the swastika, finding that the symbol constitutes 'fighting words' unprotected by the Constitution. The court also upheld the liability insurance requirement, despite the fact that it effectively would have made the rally unfeasible. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court in 1977, which declined to overturn the lower court ruling but instructed the state of Illinois to 'provide strict procedural safeguards' if it moved to limit free speech.
"In January 1978, the Illinois Supreme Court decided that the NSPA march was constitutionally protected, including the right to wear swastikas, ruling that 'the display of the swastika, as offensive to the principles of a free nation as the memories it recalls may be, is symbolic political speech intended to convey to the public the beliefs of those who display it.' In February, a federal court went even further, ruling that the ordinances intended to prevent the march were unconstitutional.
"The NSPA march was held on June 25, 1978, though the march never materialized. About 20 or so Nazis congregated for only ten minutes, and throngs of Jewish and other groups drowning out their voices. Jewish organizations planned counter marches not only in Skokie, but in New York City and other places.
"Meir Kahane also held a rally in 1977, after the initial cancellation but prior to the court rulings permitting it to go ahead. Kahane urged a crowd estimated at 400 to 'kill Nazis now' and to arm themselves, exhorting them: 'Every Jew a .22.'
"President Carter also issued a statement: 'I must respect the decision of the Supreme Court allowing this group (the Nazis) to express their views, even when those views are despicable and ugly as they are in this case. But if such views must be expressed, I am pleased they will not go unanswered. That is why I want to voice my complete solidarity with those citizens of Skokie and Chicago who will gather Sunday in a peaceful demonstration of their abhorrence of Nazism.'"
In Charlottesville, the demonstrators numbered many more than "20 or so" and counter-demonstrators did much more than shout. Some came to fight. See the videos and believe your eyes instead of liberal media lies.
The two sides were not kept apart, foolishly, and violence ensued, predictably. One counter-demonstrator died as a result of being struck by a car driven by a supporter of the demonstration who had been violent with his own mother and does not appear to be "normal." Second-degree murder charges apparently will be pursued against the driver.
My college classmate's concern that the "car murder" may have "converted" me is unwarranted. My view on Presidents making legal pronouncements on what a verdict should be before there is a trial. much less a verdict, remains the same: don't do it. I did not think that President Trump should have said that the police had "acted stupidly" when a Harvard professor was arrested or made the remarks he made about the shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri. I also do not think that President Trump should have risked prejudicing the expected trial of the driver by deeming the incident a murder. That's what a trial is supposed to determine.
That said, President Trump's comments about the car incident seems to have been well-intentioned and the result of legal ignorance, not malicious.
Also, President Trump just backed North Korea down, and that's something neither his Democrat or Republican presidents managed to do.
Quibbling over the words President Trump chose to use is petty. As President, he gets to say what he wants when he wants to say and the liberal media doesn't get to provide the content when he uses a teleprompter.
The real travesty now is that anti-Trumpers in the liberal media have been misrepresenting what President Trump said: he said, rightly, that there was fault on both sides, and he never said that the faults were equal.
President Trump is right that not all demonstrators are Nazis, Klansmen and/or white racists.
That's inconvenient for the Far Left, but it's true.
My college classmate is hardly alone in believing that Confederate monuments such as a statue of Robert E. Lee are historical and should not be damaged or destroyed. That that does not make her racist.
The posturing of media personalities embarrassed by President Trump's election success and opportunistic politicians is not only galling, but dangerous, especially when they misrepresent what President Trump actually said and pretend that the counter-demonstrators were pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi.
I watched television reporting on Charlottesville's recent problems live and will long remember video of a demonstrator swinging a pole with a furled Confederate flag in a duel of duel of sorts with a counter-demonstrator wielding what was referred to as a homemade flame thrower.
Someone taking a gas mask to a demonstration may not be planning to breathe, not to fight, but someone who brings a flame thrower seems to be going to war, not to light cigarettes.
© Michael Gaynor
August 17, 2017
The posturing of media personalities embarrassed by President Trump's election success and opportunistic politicians is not only galling, but dangerous, especially when they misrepresent what President Trump actually said and pretend that the counter-demonstrators were pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi.
These days the liberal media establishment is hell bent on convincing the public that it was right when it insisted that Donald Trump was not only unfit to be President, but incapable of being elected. Its goal is to destroy President Trump, so it tells the truth (but not always the whole truth) only when that truth fits its anti-Trump agenda.
When called to testify, a witness is required to swear (or affirm) to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before being permitted to testify.
That is as it should be.
Leftist media personalities do not swear (or affirm) when they "report" the news or opine of it. Often they deny or ignore what is true to promote the anti-Trump/pro-Progressive agenda shamelessly.
For example, they insist that President Trump equated Nazism and white racism with the violence perpetrated by counter-demonstrators in Charlotteville, Virginia last weekend.
President Trump did not.
President Trump stated that both sides were at fault, and the videos prove him right.
President Trump called for love instead of opining on relative fault.
Instead of asking President Trump about it, his media enemies vilified him for daring to speak inconvenient truth.
Perhaps it was impolitic of President Trump to mention that some counter-demonstrators were at fault too, especially since an apparently innocent one of them was killed and none of the demonstrators was killed.
But disregarding the wrongs of the counter-demonstrators and pretending with the Far Left that all of the counter-demonstrators were flawless persons would be wrong.
It's like blaming Nazi Germany for invading Poland and omitting to mention that Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union had made a deal to divide Poland and the Soviet Union invaded Poland a couple of weeks later. Since Hitler proceeded to invade the Soviet Union and Stalin joined the Allies, the truth about what happened to Poland is not generally appreciated in the United States. Nevertheless, it is the truth and should be known, not dropped from history.
The motto of The New York Times is "All the news that's fit to print."
Under truth in advertising principles, it should be revised to "All the news that fits our agenda" and both The New York Times and the Washington Post should use it.
Yesterday, a college classmate, obviously outraged with the liberal media coverage of President Trump's remarks about the demonstration and counter-demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, emailed me as follows:
"Please write an article in defense of the President. I would suggest a title such as: 'Believe the Alt Left, or Believe Your Eyes?'
"The LEFT arrived armed with weapons, wearing gas masks, boiling for a fight. If the white nationals had just congregated and marched and been ignored, none of this would have happened. Didn't it go that way in Skokie, ILL some time ago?
"The LEFT can do whatever it wants. Of course, I don't approve of neo-Nazism, but I resent the destruction of these monuments. Perhaps this latest outrage, the car murder, has converted you, though?
"Trump spoke the truth. There is blame on all sides. Apparently, the truth doesn't matter anymore."
When the truth doesn't matter anymore, we are doomed.
The whole truth mattered to President Trump, and he would not be intimidated.
My college classmate is right that "Trump spoke the truth" and "There is blame on all sides."
The liberal media and the Left are pretending that the counter-demonstrators were wholly innocent. Some of them were, but others of them surely were not. Watch the video tapes!
The media and the Far Left are horrified that President Trump told the whole truth and not nearly satisfied that he did not immediately explicitly condemn the neo-Nazis, Klan and white racists as a result of the events in Charlottesvile last weekend.
It is generally better to learn from history than to repeat it, and recalling what happened in Skokie, Illinois in the late 1970's is very much in order.
An outrageously provocative Nazi demonstration in Skokie in 1978 was met with shouting instead of violence and fizzled.
Joe Winkler's article, titled "When the Nazis came to Skokie" (www.jta.org/2013/06/20/news-opinion/the-telegraph/nazis-marching-through-skokie), put the event in context, as follows:
"In 1977, the leader of the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Frank Collin, announced a march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill. While a neo-Nazi march would be controversial under any circumstances, the fact that one out of six people in Skokie were Holocaust survivors made it even more provocative. Chicago authorities took steps to prevent it, including requiring the NSPA to post $350,000 worth of liability insurance in case any damage occurred. Authorities also banned the display of Nazi images, explaining that the violence that might have been incited overrode free speech protections.
"The dispute drew national attention. After the march was initially cancelled, the ACLU took up the case at the urging of Jewish lawyer Joseph Burton, who defended the NSPA's right to freedom of speech and assembly. Victor Rosenblum, a professor of law at Northwestern University and past chairman of the Anti-Defamation League's Chicago branch, made the counter-argument: 'The Nazis' march in paraphernalia is a reminder of the most destructive movement in history. They stand for the destruction and wiping out of human beings. This is not constitutionally protected.'
"An initial court ruling said the NSPA could march in uniform but not display the swastika, finding that the symbol constitutes 'fighting words' unprotected by the Constitution. The court also upheld the liability insurance requirement, despite the fact that it effectively would have made the rally unfeasible. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court in 1977, which declined to overturn the lower court ruling but instructed the state of Illinois to 'provide strict procedural safeguards' if it moved to limit free speech.
"In January 1978, the Illinois Supreme Court decided that the NSPA march was constitutionally protected, including the right to wear swastikas, ruling that 'the display of the swastika, as offensive to the principles of a free nation as the memories it recalls may be, is symbolic political speech intended to convey to the public the beliefs of those who display it.' In February, a federal court went even further, ruling that the ordinances intended to prevent the march were unconstitutional.
"The NSPA march was held on June 25, 1978, though the march never materialized. About 20 or so Nazis congregated for only ten minutes, and throngs of Jewish and other groups drowning out their voices. Jewish organizations planned counter marches not only in Skokie, but in New York City and other places.
"Meir Kahane also held a rally in 1977, after the initial cancellation but prior to the court rulings permitting it to go ahead. Kahane urged a crowd estimated at 400 to 'kill Nazis now' and to arm themselves, exhorting them: 'Every Jew a .22.'
"President Carter also issued a statement: 'I must respect the decision of the Supreme Court allowing this group (the Nazis) to express their views, even when those views are despicable and ugly as they are in this case. But if such views must be expressed, I am pleased they will not go unanswered. That is why I want to voice my complete solidarity with those citizens of Skokie and Chicago who will gather Sunday in a peaceful demonstration of their abhorrence of Nazism.'"
In Charlottesville, the demonstrators numbered many more than "20 or so" and counter-demonstrators did much more than shout. Some came to fight. See the videos and believe your eyes instead of liberal media lies.
The two sides were not kept apart, foolishly, and violence ensued, predictably. One counter-demonstrator died as a result of being struck by a car driven by a supporter of the demonstration who had been violent with his own mother and does not appear to be "normal." Second-degree murder charges apparently will be pursued against the driver.
My college classmate's concern that the "car murder" may have "converted" me is unwarranted. My view on Presidents making legal pronouncements on what a verdict should be before there is a trial. much less a verdict, remains the same: don't do it. I did not think that President Trump should have said that the police had "acted stupidly" when a Harvard professor was arrested or made the remarks he made about the shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri. I also do not think that President Trump should have risked prejudicing the expected trial of the driver by deeming the incident a murder. That's what a trial is supposed to determine.
That said, President Trump's comments about the car incident seems to have been well-intentioned and the result of legal ignorance, not malicious.
Also, President Trump just backed North Korea down, and that's something neither his Democrat or Republican presidents managed to do.
Quibbling over the words President Trump chose to use is petty. As President, he gets to say what he wants when he wants to say and the liberal media doesn't get to provide the content when he uses a teleprompter.
The real travesty now is that anti-Trumpers in the liberal media have been misrepresenting what President Trump said: he said, rightly, that there was fault on both sides, and he never said that the faults were equal.
President Trump is right that not all demonstrators are Nazis, Klansmen and/or white racists.
That's inconvenient for the Far Left, but it's true.
My college classmate is hardly alone in believing that Confederate monuments such as a statue of Robert E. Lee are historical and should not be damaged or destroyed. That that does not make her racist.
The posturing of media personalities embarrassed by President Trump's election success and opportunistic politicians is not only galling, but dangerous, especially when they misrepresent what President Trump actually said and pretend that the counter-demonstrators were pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi.
I watched television reporting on Charlottesville's recent problems live and will long remember video of a demonstrator swinging a pole with a furled Confederate flag in a duel of duel of sorts with a counter-demonstrator wielding what was referred to as a homemade flame thrower.
Someone taking a gas mask to a demonstration may not be planning to breathe, not to fight, but someone who brings a flame thrower seems to be going to war, not to light cigarettes.
© Michael Gaynor
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
