Props to NBC. You probably know we're generally not fans - not of them and not of the MSM in general. Just yesterday I took them all to task for essentially functioning as the propaganda arm of the alt-left.
But in fairness, I will say this: I've spent time in newsrooms and there are people there - not necessarily conservatives, either - who think it's important to get the facts right regardless of who comes out looking good as a result. They tend to believe that "facts have a liberal bias," so sometimes when they think they're being factual they're really not.
That said, in the case of Charlottesville, the left-wing counterprotesters either contributed to the problem or they didn't. That's not really an ideological question. And if it's true that they did, and that truth vindicates President Trump's assertions over the past several days, well . . . you report the facts without fear or favor, right, NBC?
And amazingly, they did:
Charlottesville Fact Check: Were Both Sides To Blame For Violence? | TODAY
Now according to most of the discourse over the past several days, NBC must be Nazi sympathizers! I . . . don't think they are. I don't think anyone is apart from the Nazis themselves, but let's focus on the facts at hand.
If NBC's report is correct, and the left-wing protesters did indeed bear part of the responsibility for the violence in Charlottesville, then everything President Trump said about this was correct. And if that's the case, then what exactly is the point of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth we've been hearing since Saturday?
The more I see what's been going on over the past several days, the more convinced I become that President Trump has actually been the most responsible party we've seen in making statements about Charlottesville. On Saturday, he condemned violence, hatred and bigots on all sides. People got upset because he hadn't specifically mentioned white supremacists, as if anyone with a brain couldn't figure out that was who he was talking about. So fine, on Monday he specifically denounced white supremacists.
Then later on Monday, he called a press conference to talk about infrastructure initiatives, but all the media wanted to talk about was Charlottesville, and specifically Trump's comments about it - all of which are turning out to be completely accurate. When he once again said all sides bore responsibility, the media went completely ballistic and said he was a Nazi sympathizer.
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They also claimed that Trump had said there were some "very fine people" among the white supremacists. That is a lie. Here is the exact exchange, via The Hill (emphasis mine):
Trump: “And you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
“OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
Reporter: “You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? (inaudible) understand what you're saying.”
Trump: “No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I'm sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people – neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.
“But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know – I don't know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit.”
This could not be more clear, and I don't believe for a second that the reporter who asked the question in the excerpted exchanged failed to hear Trump correctly. He knew exactly what Trump said. He was trying to redirect in the hope that he could get Trump to stumble into giving an answer that sounded like, yes, he was saying white nationalists had been treated unfairly.
Now NBC's report isn't perfect. They drop several insinuations that Trump had somehow defended or minimized the evil of the white supremacists, and they interview people who seem to think that's true without challenging them. So no three cheers, but two cheers to NBC for mostly reporting the truth about Charlottesville, which completely vindicates everything Trump has said about it. And a curse on the house of the rest of the media, who continue to push the lie that Trump is sympathizing with Nazis and white supremacists. That is simply not true. At all.
The people you get the news from are lying to you, but at least on this day NBC is telling the truth. Now, if they would it every day, that would be great.
