editor@myweeklysentinel.com
First, the sensational allegations of a bunch of “MAGA-Hat wearing, privileged, white Catholic kids” from Covington, Kentucky, in Washington for the March for Life, “mocking and harassing” a “serene Native American, Vietnam combat veteran.”
The progressive left jumped in with both feet, as did the mainstream news media, the anti-Trump faction of the Conservative movement, even the Catholic Diocese representing the Covington group. They saw ninety seconds or so of video which showed one of the Covington kids “smirking” as he was “in the face” of the Native American, who was pounding a drum as part of a ceremony.
Of course, the full version of the tape showed precisely the opposite: that the Covington Kids were essentially minding their own business on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, when a small group of progressive activists began shouting insults, most of which are so vile they cannot be repeated here. The Kids did not attack their harassers, nor return insult for insult, but, with the permission of their chaperone, sang their school’s fight song. This went on for some time, and then the Native American advanced toward the Kids (not the other way around), “got in their faces” (not the other way around) and pounded his drum quite close to the face of the “smirking” youth. Who, by the way, responded by “smirking” and nothing else – he nor any of the other Kids did not commit assault, battery, mayhem, threaten, attack, insult, ridicule or otherwise disparage the drummer.
Well, as we said, the progressive left had its collective mind made up when they saw the first MAGA hat, so they knew that those Kids were evil, wicked racists, bent on mocking and ridiculing, and they unloaded both barrels on the Kids from Covington. After viewing the actual videos in their entirety, some of the critics have apologized and admitted they reacted before they were in possession of the facts. Some have taken down their social media posts condemning the Kids, but many, many on the progressive left will never concede the mistake, and the Covington kids, their families, and the school have been subjected to attacks and threats so severe that school there was cancelled Tuesday.
The Democrat congressman who ruminated about “banning MAGA hats” has not recanted – and most of the more vicious verbal attacks on the Kids are still around, and most of the progressives have comfortably moved on to some other cause even as the Covington Kids suffer banishment, threats, and disruption to their lives – and remember, they were innocent – they neither attacked nor mocked.
A lot of people have quoted Mark Twain’s line about “a lie traveling half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes,” but we’ll quote another Mark Twain line: “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” The anti-Trump people were so “focused” on showing how wrong and wicked the “Trumpers” are that they saw things that were not there and did not happen, and they did not even find it necessary to wait to learn the truth.
It is fair to ask if it would have been different had the youths been wearing”Hope and Change” shirts, or “John Kasich for President” hats. Would they been given the benefit of the doubt in those cases?
But even more worthy of comment is this: people who argue against death sentences or harsh penalties for murderers, sexual predators, etc. had no problem with wishing death and destruction on the Covington Kids. The same folks who wanted the Covington Kids run through woodchippers (MAGA hats first), punched in the face, killed or destroyed, would never condone physical punishment of any kind against the cruelest, most wicked killer out there. The hyperbolic overreaction saw the progressive left printing home addresses and personal information about the Covington Kids. They would never treat an actual criminal so cruelly.
There is a lesson to be learned here, and it is this: wait until the facts are in before expressing an opinion on someone else’s behavior. After the truth is known, there is plenty of time to get angry, to pile on, to destroy to one’s heart’s content, although it does strike us as odd that folks who applaud restraint, non-violence and dignity in the face of oppression and evil are so quick to join a lynch mob, especially in a case where no violence was committed. Everyone who condemned those Covington Kids should be ashamed of himself or herself. Everyone who attacked them should apologize, and everyone of them who joined the mob without waiting for the facts should remember Mark Twain’s words,”You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus,” and it also wouldn’t hurt to recall the line from Gilbert and Sullivan, “let the punishment fit the crime.” “Death” for “smirking” or “taunting” seems more than a little extreme.