Glad I Didn’t Say That! A New Correction Coming from The New York Times?

Tags

cancel culture, editing, fact check, Glad I Didn't Say That!, journalism, op-ed page, peaceful protests, Portland, protests, The New York Times, Tom Cotton

“[T]he published [op-ed] piece [by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton] presents as facts assertions about the role of ‘cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa in infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes’; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of thoseassertions, or removed them from the piece.”

– The New York Times, June 5, 2020

“Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, is a radical, leaderless leftist

political movement that uses armed, violent protest as a method to

create what supporters say is a more just and equitable country.

They have a strong presence in the Pacific Northwest, including the

current protests in Portland.”

– The New York Times, August 7, 2020

(Sources: “Editor’s Note,” The New York Times, June 5, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html and “Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure,” by Nellie Bowles, The New York Times, August 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-protests.html . Thanks to “CTIronman.”)

 

Im-Politic: Never-Trumper Evidence That the Feds Haven’t Worsened Portland’s Violence

Tags

Chris Cillizza, CNN, Im-Politic, Josh Campbell, law enforcement, Mainstream Media, Oregon, peaceful protests, Portland, protests, riots, Trump, violence

I’ve long believed that one of the best ways to confirm or at least support a claim made by someone else isn’t to present evidence from a source that’s sympathetic to that point of view. It’s to present evidence from a source that’s not the slightest bit sympathetic.

That’s why I’m focusing today on a CNN post from yesterday and what it says about the charge that the presence of various federal law enforcement units (some allegedly not identified) is mainly responsible for the upsurge in violent protests in Portland, Oregon – not the activities of at least some of the protesters themselves. In two noteworthy ways, it compellingly reinforces that case that the protesters and not the federal units dispatched by President Trump actually are the ones at fault.

The post is from Chris Cillizza, an Editor-at-Large with a clear Never Trump worldview at a news organization that’s unmistakably hostile to the President. (Just take a look at CNN‘s home page at any given moment if you doubt me.) Moreover, the reporter-on-the-ground who Cillizza interviewed to find out “What the heck is going on in Portland?” – Josh Campbell – seems to have made up his mind on the subject, too. How else can you explain his contention that

“Portland is now witnessing a standoff between protesters and an administration that continues to ratchet up its heated rhetoric to (falsely) describe the city as being in a state of total chaos and anarchy. While there have been incidents of rioting at night, including people launching fireworks at the federal building, setting fires outside, and allegedly attacking federal agents, the focal point of that activity largely centers on the city block housing the federal building. Despite the President’s descriptions, Portland is not a city under siege.”

In other words, “Nothing unusual to see here – except maybe on one city block.” And of course not a chance that this violence would spread if not actively resisted.

That’s why I found so noteworthy these two statements by Campbell – based, it’s important to remember, on his eyewitness observations. First:

“As I was interviewing the mayor Wednesday night among a crowd of hundreds of peaceful protesters, a group of rioters gathered near the fencing outside the federal building and began lobbing projectiles at the building and setting fires. In a pattern we have seen over and over, when federal agents in the building are provoked, or a fire set by rioters risks destroying the building, tactical officers will come out in full force and launch tear gas to disperse the crowd.”

Second:

“[Y]ou have a mixture of federal agents from different agencies serving as guards and riot control officers at the downtown courthouse. At night, when a portion of the crowd turns violent, agents will often line up and push protesters back blocks away from the building using tear gas, rubber bullets and batons.”

On the one hand, I’m grateful that bias hasn’t distorted Campbell’s senses enough to prevent him from recounting events in a way that plainly undercut this bias. On the other, I can’t help but wonder: If someone evidently inclined to blame President Trump for most of Portland’s latest troubles is (however unwittingly) making clear that the violence has (at least often) been started by the federal police, isn’t it possible that the protesters’ activities have been even more provocative – and less excusable – than Campbell and CNN are reporting?

Im-Politic: Signs That The Mob is Starting to Rule

Tags

cancel culture, Chicago, Christopher Columbus, Confederate monuments, Connecticut, election 2020, freedom of the press, history wars, ImPolitic, Nelson Lee, peaceful protests, press freedom, protests, public safety, Seattle, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Times, shield laws, Ulysses S. Grant, violence, Washington Post

The next time you hear or read that the vast majority of protests during these turbulent times in America are peaceful (which will surely be within the next five minutes if you’re a news follower), keep in mind this pair of developments. They give me the willies and should so unnerve you, even if you (like me) believe that the vast majority of the protests have indeed been peaceful.

The first matters because it makes clear as can be that some of the protest groups contain individuals who make the cohort of brazen looters that’s emerged in so many violence-wracked cities look nearly harmless. What else can be reasonably concluded from this Washington Post account (yes, the same Washington Post whose journalism I slammed yesterday) of a court case in Seattle dealing with whether news organizations in the city could be ordered to turn over to the Seattle Police Department photos and video their staffers had taken of protesters who had “smashed windows, set police cars on fire, and looted businesses.” The cops’ intent – use this material to find the perpetrators and arrest them.

I was hugely relieved to read that the judge presiding over the case did rule that most of the material (all unpublished or posted) must be provided. But I was aghast at the reason given for the news organizations’ resistance. The Seattle Times, for its part, did cite freedom of the press concerns – involving Washington State’s shield laws, which entitle news organizations to protect source materials. These laws, which in various forms are practically universal throughout the United States, are indeed essential for enabling journalists to secure information that governments would rather keep secret for self-serving reasons.

The Times also made the reasonable (though in this case, not necessarily dispositive) claim that such cooperating with the police would put its credibility at risk. As contended by Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores:

“The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public. We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.”

But these weren’t the only reasons cited by the paper. In an affidavit, Times Assistant Managing Editor Danny Gawlowski attested “The perception that a journalist might be collaborating with police or other public officials poses a very real, physical danger to journalists, particularly when they are covering protests or civil unrest.”

Moreover, Gawlowski stated, this danger wasn’t hypothetical. It had already happened. According to the Post‘s summary of his affidavit;

“The request could significantly harm journalists, the Times argued, at a time when reporters already face violence and distrust from protesters. One Times photographer was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester and punched in the face by another demonstrator.”

In other words, the Seattle Times, anyway, wanted to refuse to help law enforcement protect public safety because at least in part it was afraid that some protesters might attack them even more violently than they already had.

That sure sounds like intimidation to me, and successful intimidation at that. And even though the judge thankfully ordered substantial (though not full) cooperation, who’s to say that the Times won’t pull its protests coverage punches anyway? Even more important, what if violence-prone protesters elsewhere in the country read about this case, try to strong-arm local or national news media, too, and succeed? And what if not every judge holds the same priorities as Seattle’s Nelson Lee? Talk about a danger to democratic norms – as well as public safety.

The second development concerns decisions by governments in at least two parts of the country to take down controversial statues – a major front in the nation’s history wars. Don’t get me wrong: Elected authorities removing these monuments is sure better than unelected mobs toppling or defacing them – as long as these actions follow legitimate procedures and aren’t arbitrary. And as I’ve written repeatedly, in the case of Confederate monuments, it’s usually not only completely justified, but long overdue.

But in these cases, it’s the rationale for these actions that’s deeply disturbing. In both Connecticut and in Chicago, statues of Christopher Columbus and former President and Civil War Union supreme Union commander Ulysses S. Grant, respectively, were removed (as Windy City Mayor Lori Lightfoot explained her reasoning) “in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner.”

Translation: “I was afraid of the mob. And I decided to let them win.” No better definition could be found of the kind of appeasement that only spurs further violence. And no more important challenge will confront the President and candidates for Congress who will be elected or reelected in November. 

Following Up: Another Confederate Statue Mess

Tags

Albert Pike, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clarence Williams, Confederacy, Confederate monuments, D.C., D.C. Police, District of Columbia, Following Up, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, history wars, National Park Service, peaceful protests, Perry Stein, Peter Hermann, protests, Trump, U.S. Park Police, vandalism, Washington Post

There is so much shameful behavior by various government and law enforcement authorities reported in this morning’s Washington Post account of the illegal takedown of a statue of a Confederate general (Albert Pike) in the District of Columbia (D.C.) that it’s hard to know where to begin.

But let’s begin on a positive note: There was nothing shameful in the Post‘s own account. Quite the contrary:  reporters Perry Stein, Clarence Williams, and Peter Hermann – and their editors – provided an unusual amount of useful information. Hopefully we’ll see much more journalism like that going forward.

In fact, the Post article taught me something that shows I made a significant mistake in a tweet yesterday. When I learned of the statue’s removal by a mob, I tweeted, “Let me get this straight: The #DC government is so #racist that #peacefulprotest-ers had no choice but to take the law into their own hands & tear down the #AlbertPike statue. Plus, DC cops stand by and watch. Totally disgraceful #vandalism & vandalism coddling. #murielbowser.” (Bowser is D.C.’s Mayor.)

The mistake has to do with jurisdiction. As the Post reported, the D.C. police noted that “The statue in question sits in a federal park and therefore is within the jurisdiction of National Park Service and the United States Park Police.” So the District’s government didn’t, as I implied, have the authority to remove the statue.

Yet although I apologize for the D.C. government reference, I still stand behind mob point (about the need always to follow lawful procedures for removing such monuments) and the D.C. police point. Unless everyone should applaud officers who stand by and do absolutely nothing when flagrant lawbreaking is not only within plain sight, but scarcely a block away? What if the D.C. police saw a murder being threatened in a federal park? (By the way, as a longtime District resident, I can tell you that the parks in which these monuments stand are mostly vestpocket-size parks, and aren’t watched or patrolled regularly by anyone at any time of day.)

Moreover, there’s evidence that the D.C. police were aware that something was wrong – and weren’t even positive that they lacked the authority to act. The Post  quoted a National Park Service spokesman as claiming that “D.C. police had called U.S. Park Police dispatch to ask about jurisdiction. He said in an email that when Park Police officers arrived, ‘the statue was already down and on fire.’ The toppling of the statue is under investigation, he said. Litterst [the spokesman] did not address whether the Park Service thinks D.C. police should have intervened.”

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that monuments to traitors like Confederate generals have no place on public grounds, it’s clear that the federal government has been brain-dead on this issue (to put it kindly). But the Post account also reveals that this disgraceful neglect long predates the presidency of Donald Trump (who continues to oppose any changes in these statues’ placement or even renaming U.S. military bases named after such treasonous figures).

Specifically, “District officials have been trying to get the statue removed for several years. The D.C. Council petitioned the federal government to remove the statue in 1992.”

From then until Mr. Trump’s inauguration, four Presidents have served – including recent liberal and Mainstream Media darlings George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Why didn’t they remove the statue? Why haven’t they even commented on the matter? And why haven’t they been called on the carpet for their records on this matter, and for their silence?

But let’s close on a positive note, too. One question raised by this statue controversy – what to do with it – is pretty easily answered. Either stick it in a museum (with a full description provided of this minor Confederate figure) or throw it in the city or some federal dump.

Im-Politic: The Public and the Protests

Tags

African Americans, Associated Press, Democrats, election 2020, George Floyd, Im-Politic, National Opinion Research Center, NORC, police brutality, politics, polling, polls, pollsters, protests, racism, Republicans, Trump, University of Chicago

Here at RealityChek I try to focus on polls only that come up with unusually interesting results,, but even by that lofty standard, this new survey from the Associated Press-NORC [National Opinion Research Center] for Public Affairs Research (the latter affiliated with the University of Chicago) is unusually interesting. And for more than one reason.

First and maybe foremost, is the methodological note that came at the end: “[B]lack adults were sampled at a higher rate than their proportion of the population for reasons of analysis.” You don’t have to know much about polling to ask legitimately “What the heck is that about?”

After all, if you’re looking to find out what Americans (or any group) think about this or that subject, you need to ask a sample of that population that’s representative. In this case, sampling African Americans at a higher-than-justified rate is bound to produce results that permit African-American answers to distort the findings in the direction of African-American opinion. And given African Americans’ overwhelming preference for Democrats and (as far as we know) overwhelming opposition to President Trump, this practice is also bound to produce results that skew markedly pro-Democrat and anti-Trump.

Second, even with this “pro-African-American” bias, the survey shows that although a majority of Americans “approve…of the recent protests against police violence in response to [George] Floyd’s death,” the majority isn’t that big. Overall approval is only 54 percent (and again, this finding is thrown off by the aforementioned methology) and “strong approval” was expressed by only 21 percent.

Black Americans’ backing was much stronger: 81 percent overall, with 71 percent strongly approving.

Third, Americans as a whole aren’t buying the notion that the recent protests have been all or mostly peaceful. Indeed, only 27 percent agree with those characterizations combined. Moreover, a slim majority (51 percent) favored the description “both peaceful and violent” and fully 22 percent regarded tham as all or mostly violent.”

And again, the numbers tilting toward emphasizing the violence seen during the protests have probably been depressed by the pro-African-American and therefore pro-Democratic skew of the sample. Nearly half (49 percent) of Democrats called the protests all or mostly peaceful. At the same time, 42 percent of them viewed the protests as “both peaceful and violent.”

Fourth, no racially broken down results were provided for the violence question, but they were presented for the results judging “law enforcement’s response.” In this case, the U.S. public as a whole chose “appropriate response” over “excessive force” by 55 percent to 44 percent. But 70 percent of black Americans believed the police et al used too much force – which surely propped up the 44 percent figure reported for Americans as a whole.

Finally, don’t conclude from the above results that this survey offers much good news for President Trump and his supporters and the relatively hardline approach they’ve favored for handling the protests. As the Associated Press and NORC put it: “Over half of all Americans say his response made things worse and just 12% say it made things better. While there are racial differences, about half of both white Americans (51%) and black Americans (72%) feel that the president’s response made things worse. ”

And in this case, the bizarre sample used by the Associated Press and NORC can’t come close to explaining these underwater Trump ratings. The most positive pro-Trump spin that makes any sense is that although there’s major overall public support for the President’s positions and the actions that logically follow, he’s getting almost no credit for advocating them.

Im-Politic: How The New York Times Op-Ed Page Really Blew It on Tom Cotton

Tags

fact-checking, free speech, freedom of speech, globalization, Im-Politic, journalism, Mainstream Media, MSM, op-ed page, opinion journalism, Paul M. Krugman, protests, Tom Cotton, Trade

Although pretty much everyone who’s thought about it agrees that The New York Times op-ed page has thoroughly bungled its handling of an article it recently published by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, disagreement is rife over what the blunder was.

Because I’ve written several times for The Times‘ Op-Ed page and others, I’ve got two thoughts that I believe can usefully add to the mix. But first, it’s important to note that even The Times as a company can’t seem to agree on what went wrong.

At various times, various staffers in various of its departments (including ownership) have claimed that Cotton’s main argument (that President Trump should call in the U.S. military to restore order in cities where it’s broken down and/or where state and local authorities can’t or won’t respond inadequately)

>should never have run because it fell outside the bounds of responsible opinion;

>that it might constitute responsible opinion but that its publication at a time of major national tumult – and especially race-tinged tumult – was inappropriate, and even heightened dangers to Times and other reporters covering the George Floyd protests, and to African-American reporters in particular;

>that however controversial, the argument wasn’t out of bounds, but that the article wasn’t satisfactorily fact-checked;

>that it was indeed fact-checked as per usual; and

>that Cotton’s and other allegedly out of bounds views should be presented in the paper, but in hard news articles (where adequate context, scrutiny, and counter-arguments could be provided), rather than on the op-ed page (where regardless of whether it was fact-checked or not, publication per se created an aura of approval or legitimacy or prestige that was unwarranted. Here’s a good summary from The Times’ main national competitor, the Washington Post.

Moreover, if you’re not already confused enough, how about these two positions stated by the newspaper’s ownership – the first by publisher A.G. Sulzberger (presented in the above linked Post piece):

>“I believe in the principle of openness to a range of opinions, even those we may disagree with, and this piece was published in that spirit” and

and the second by his spokesperson:

“We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication. This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short term and long term changes, to include expanding our fact checking operation and reducing the number of Op-Eds we publish.”

At least these statements weren’t made on the same day.

And to top it all off, the article hasn’t been retracted or yanked from The Times‘ website.

Now for my two observations. The first involves the fact-checking issue.

As mentioned above, I’ve written frequently for The Times and other op-ed pages. And I can tell you from personal experience that fact-checking for outside contributors is spotty at best. I’ve been asked to provide cites for the specific data that my articles typically contain. But I have no reason to believe that anyone on the paper has looked through these numbers in detail – or at all.

That’s especially revealing because the trade and globalization subjects on which I’ve most often written are so obviously alien territories to the paper’s opinion staffers. But I’ve never knowingly presented a number or fact that I know is either inaccurate or misleading – or in which I haven’t had complete confidence.

More disturbing, one undoubted reason that my articles have been even superficially fact-checked is that they run counter both to the newspaper’s official stance generally favoring pre-Trump U.S. trade.policies, and to the unofficial but clear approval of such policies by The Times‘ straight news economics correspondents.

It’s unimaginable to me that anything like such requirements – including contextualizing – have been imposed on articles that conform with these official and unofficial Times‘ views. And I’m certain this is the case because flagrant errors have been so easy to spot.

One example: It’s become seemingly mandatory that articles favoring pre-Trump policies contend that 95 percent of the world’s population lives outside U.S. borders, and that therefore any deviation from so-called pro-free trade policies that ignores or slights the need to reach these potential consumers would be a catastrophic mistake. Never, ever pointed out: The vast majority of this 95 percent earns far too little to be significant customers for American-made products, or to become significant customers in the policy-relevant future. (I debunked the claim here.)

And as I’ve repeatedly shown on RealityChek – notably in the case of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul M. Krugman – serious fact-checking seems at least as rare when it comes to The Times‘ regular columnists.

So let’s please drop fact-checking as an excuse for challenging the legitimacy of running Cotton’s piece.

My second observation involves the broader debate set off by this fiasco (which resulted in the chief of the opinion pages resigning and the head of the op-ed page getting moved into another job). As with The Times internal deliberations, it’s been all over the place, too, but one central and explicit charge has been that even The Times‘ official waffling on the Cotton piece’s suitability amounts to troubling retreats from the ideals of journalistic objectivity and of free expression (which of course needs to comply with well established Constitutional limits, like prohibitions on speech and other forms of expression that are defamatory, or that posed dangers to children, or that ,’by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”).

To which my response is: Grow up. After all, The Times is a private company, and is under no obligation to publish all or even most ideological or philosophical comers on its opinion pages or anywhere else. It’s not a “public square.” Get a permit (if needed), and preach from a soap box on a street corner if you want one of those. 

True,the paper – which literally invented the op-ed page – avowedly conceived of the feature, in 1970, as an effort to:

“afford greater opportunity for exploration of issues and presentation of new insights and new ideas by writers and thinkers who have no institutional connection with The Times and whose views will very frequently be completely divergent from our own.”

Times editors added:

“In furtherance of our belief that the diverse voices of our society must be given the greatest possible opportunity to be heard, we are at the same time approximately doubling the weekday space devoted to letters from our readers.”

I personally believe that this commitment to maximum (legal) diversity has been admirable. But that’s far from claiming that the paper has any legal or moral obligation to seek such variety. So my only quarrel with The Times on these free speech issues is an insistence on transparency – and honesty. If Times management wants officially to turn the op-ed page into a megaphone for whatever set of viewpoints it likes, or against whatever group of opinions it dislikes, just do it, and announce the decision to your readers.

At the same time, if the paper wants to keep sitting on the fence, or groping in the dark, or simply doesn’t even yet know what it’s groping towards, that should be announced, too. Such a confession of broad fallibility has its ethical virtues, too. In fact, for the nation’s too-often high handed Mainstream Media, and its pretensions of omniscience and unimpeachable civic and intellectual integrity, nothing could be more refreshing – not to mention newsworthy.

Im-Politic: When Public Health Professionals Lose It

Tags

African Americans, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, George Floyd, Im-Politic, police brutality, protests, public health, racism, white supremacists, Wuhan virus

I didn’t believe it possible: One group of voices in the United States has just proven itself more flagrantly hypocritical and, frankly, deranged than woke religious leaders about the violence that has too often resulted from legitimate and needed protests about George Floyd’s killing and related racial injustice and police brutality issues. That group consists of the supposed public health experts who signed a letter claiming that the urgency of protesting outweighs the importance of maintaining the social distancing and other personal behavior curbs that they’d previous declared vital to fight the CCP Virus pandemic.

The letter, which was released last week, has rightly drawn widespread outrage, ridicule, and often both. (See, e.g., here.) For its message is clearly politically based rather than scientifically based. Unless you can think of another explanation for suddenly shifting from demanding sweeping curbs on personal and business behavior that have wreaked historic economic damage for the sake of preventing millions of virus-induced deaths, to claiming that the need to demonstrate is paramount even if the inevitable public crowding resulting from mass gatherings increases superspread risks?

And that description is no exaggeration. Here’s the core of the signatories’ message:

“To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy. However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders.”

Two particular points stand out here:

First, the public health specialists are backing only “the application of…pubic health best practices” to “the extent possible.” In other words, if it’s not possible…lah de dah. Indeed, the signatories explicitly consign six-foot social distancing itself to the intrinsically lower priority “where possible” category. And the most astonishing (or most predictable?) example of politicizing public health? “Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest.”

Second, even all of these logical and ethical backflips get the heave-ho when it comes to “white protesters resisting stay-home orders.” Their demonstrations should remain entirely verboten. The reason? The “public health response to these demonstrations” must be “clear and consistent in prioritizing” their unacceptability because they’re intrisincially racist. Even granted the assumption that about racism and anti-curbs protests, you couldn’t provide a clearer definition of a double standard.

Something else bizarre about the letter: It’s anything but clear that all the signatories are even public health experts. Right off the bat, we’re told that some of the signers are “community stakeholders.” Judging from the actual list, descriptions like “activist” and “indigenous health advocate” and even “African American” and “human” justified inclusion. Many more signatories didn’t bother to present any descriptions or qualifications whatever. Still others, like “Andrew H” and “Christine D” and “Diana A” wouldn’t state their full names. And two were permitted to sign (is that even the right verb?) by identifying themselves as “Anonymous JD” and simply “anonymous.”

But what strikes me as most striking about this manifesto is the argument that protesting despite the public health risks is praiseworthy because it’s part of an effort to end racial inequities in U.S. health care delivery that have taken countless African American lives. There’s no doubt that the black community has suffered from many dangerous health challenges that haven’t been nearly so serious  for other Americans. (Here’s one representative study.) Nonetheless, the logic of this position is remarkably similar to that of claims (made by me and many others) that the lockdowns themselves have created serious public health threats, and that these need to be weighed against the sickness and deaths caused by the virus.

Which brings us back to the public health signatories’ unequivocal condemnation of those who have protested these lockdowns. If all of most or a significant percentage of these protesters really are white supremacists, they have a point. If not, it’s time they start looking into some mirrors.

Following Up: Clerics Who are Still Losing It

Tags

D.C. riots, District of Columbia, Episcopalians, Followin g Up, George Floyd, Gregory T. Monahan, Lafayette Park, Lafayette Square, Marian Budde, political violence, protests, religion, St. John's Church, Trump, U.S. Park Police, violence, Washington Post

As ticked off as I was yesterday over the truly deranged reactions of the District of Columbia’s Episcopalian leaders to the torching of their own church and to President Trump’s decision to express support for the need to protect the entire nation from arsonists, I’m ever angrier today – and justifiably so.

For Episcopal Rev Bishop Marian Budde and her colleagues, along with many prominent clerics from other religions, not only apparently lack the instinct for self-preservation that’s a hallmark of minimal sanity. They’re intellectually dishonest and unethical as well – unless you think it’s perfectly OK for them or anyone else to jump to the most convenient conclusions possible about those you disagree with politically.

To start off, although the Episcopalians’ responses to the church fire were especially unhinged, they weren’t unique among the nation’s so called faith leaders. It’s easy to find statements from these clerics blasting Mr. Trump’s actions. Just Google the relevant words. But good luck trying to find these figures criticizing the St. John’s attack. (BTW, if you come across any, please let me know. No one would like to be proven wrong on this score more than I.) At least some clerics have done a better job denouncing the violence that erupted nationwide over the last week. (See here and here for examples.)

As for the St. John’s Church positions of many religious leaders, on top of singling out the so-called Trump photo op for their slings and arrows, they have uncritically swallowed the (widespread) claim that federal police used unjustifiable and excessive force when they cleared out supposedly peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square to make way for the President. (See, here for the Episcopalians, and e.g., here and here.)  

Here’s the problem: It’s clear that not all the protesters were peaceful the day of the Trump walk. In fact, not all of them were peaceful half an hour before the Trump walk. At least that’s the claim of United States Park Police (USPP) acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan. Yesterday, Monahan – whose agency was one among several involved in the clearing operation – released a statement contending:

“On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park.  At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.”

P.S. Monahan is hardly your supposedly typical brutish cop. Before his appointment by President Trump, he was accused by the Fraternal Order of Police of being soft on defendants – including defendants who allegedly assaulted officers of the USPP San Francisco field office he then heads.

But maybe it’s likely that Monahan has undergone a Jekyll-Hyde-like transformation? Nothing’s impossible. But it’s certainly noteworthy that the Washington Post, whose news coverage of the clearing operation explicitly tarred it as “a show of aggression,” in literally its next breath proceeded to describe the victims as “ a crowd of largely peaceful protesters. Talk about weasel words. By the way – I’m pretty sure the bad guys (and gals?) weren’t wearing signs announcing, “We’re the crazies!”

The religious leaders who treated this episode as a latter-day Boston Massacre didn’t see Monahan’s statement – which came a day after theirs. But isn’t that the point? Is there any evidence that the clerics tried to confirm their suspicions – and apparently prejudices – before getting on their high horses? Again, let me know if you find some. In its absence, it’s clear they were determined to shoot first and ask questions later.

A book with which I trust all these clerics are familiar quotes someone who I trust they all revere as advising, “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone….” Time for these religious leaders to resume paying attention. Unless they view themselves as exceptions? 

Im-Politic: On Sports, Politics, and Boundaries

Tags

boycotts, China, culture, entertainment, First Amendment, free speech, Hong Kong protests, Im-Politic, national anthem, National Basketball Association, National Invitational Tournament, NBA, politics, Princeton University, protests, social media, sports, Vietnam War

One my my funnest (indulge me) memories of college was driving round trip between central New Jersey and New York City’s Madison Square Garden four times one week in the spring of 1975 to see the Princeton men’s basketball team play in – and win! – the National Invitational Tournament (which was a reasonably big deal back then).

During one of the games, a friend and I unfurled a dorm-made sign protesting something or other about the rapidly ending Vietnam War. We considered it an important message to send, and given the conflict’s damage to America’s economy, politics, society, and culture, and given the destruction wreaked throughout Southeast Asia, I have no problem all these decades later with the content.

In retrospect, though, I wish we’d left the banner back on campus, because I’m now convinced that injecting political and policy debates into a college basketball game wasn’t the right decision. I’m bringing it up today because I wish those well-meaning basketball fans supporting the Hong Kong protesters and China’s other repressive policies inside the arena would recognize that these actions are mistaken, too.

Don’t get me wrong: As I’ve written, I have no problem with athletes and other figures from the sports world expressing political and policy views. I don’t find them to be of any special interest, and way too often they’re the epitomes of ignorance, virtue signaling, or both. But all of them – along with celebrities and others from entertainment circles – unmistakably enjoy the same First Amendment rights of all other Americans. (Complications do arise, however, when their free speech rights clash with their obligations as employees of companies concerned that such words and actions will be bad for business.)

In fact, I’ve also urged National Basketball Association officials, players, owners, and other employees to think much more seriously about their partnership with China (and, by extension, other repressive countries), and even consider a boycott.

But just as I’ve urged athletes to keep their political views (e.g, taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem before pro football games) off the court and playing field (because their fame gives them so many other high-profile opportunities to speak out – and to big audiences), I’d urge fans to keep home their own beliefs, however heartfelt and morally compelling. The same, by the way, should apply to entertainers turning awards shows into political fora.

For even though spectators lack the renown and followings of athletes and entertainers, they’re hardly devoid of influence. They can choose to stay away from arenas, cinemas, theaters, and other venues showcasing performers, franchises, or entertainment businesses whose actions or statements they dislike. They can also organize boycotts of these individuals and organizations if they wish – and social media gives them a more powerful megaphone than ever. (For the record, I’m anything but enthusiastic about such politicization, especially regarding prominent individuals and organizations who fail to take desired stances.)

And I can’t imagine how any court could legitimately decide that such protesters aren’t allowed to make their views known verbally and/or visually on public transportation corridors and systems leading to and servicing sports or entertainment venues (subject of course to any level of government’s right to regulate protest activity in such a way as to permit travel and other everyday activity from proceeding).

But even if businesses and organizations that stage sports or entertainment events lacked the legal authority to ban activity at events that has nothing intrinsically to do with the sporting or entertainment angle of these events (the current legal consensus is pretty unclear, at least judging from this article), would anyone this side of rational and sane really want to go to, say, a Los Angeles Lakers pro basketball game and be forced to listen to some attendees heckle star LeBron James all contest long for his failure to condemn China’s human rights practices? Or to need to see “Free Hong Kong” banners throughout the Staples Center or any other NBA court?

The law plainly prevents such heckling or chants or other disruptive behavior at entertainment events where it’s crucial to listen to the performers. But even when speaking and listening aren’t important, who would really want to visit an art museum whose every gallery contains a protester or two or ten holding up Pro-Life or Pro-Choice signs? Who would really want to walk around a Central Park blanketed with Dump Trump or MAGA posters?

The sports, entertainment, and cultural worlds shouldn’t be shielded from politics and policy, and indeed can’t be – unless we want to make them completely irrelevant to our lives and to our posterity. But given all the opportunities available to all Americans nowadays to express political and policy views, it seems not only entirely reasonable to treat actual performances as refuges – including as escapist opportunities, from these other spheres, but essential to the health and vibrancy of both individuals and the nation as a whole. And these are boundaries that a genuinely wise society should be respected regardless of whether, and to what extent, they’re legally enforceable or not.