Going Off Half-Cocked...Yet Again!

By now you've all seen and/or heard of the event that happened on January 18, 2018 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., which is apparently the place to go in the nation's capitol to protest and harass people without the intervention of law enforcement.

In a nutshell: After attending an anti-abortion march, a group of boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky were waiting for their bus to return home. A small group of radical black Black Israelites began taunting them, calling them “crackers,” “faggots” and a bunch of other words that would get bleeped for TV. In an effort to drown out the apparent abusive treatment, the boys – all teenagers – responded by performing some of their school chants or cheers. Into this volatile mix entered one elderly Native American by the name of Nathaniel (Stanard) Phillips.

Mr. Phillips, in what he says was an effort to diffuse the situation, began banging on his drum and singing an Indian song. He inexplicably waded into the crowd of teenagers, finally coming face to face with one sixteen year-old Nicholas Sandmann. Confused as to Mr. Phillips intentions, Nicholas just stood there while Mr. Phillips beat his drum right in the teenager's face. Nicholas stood calmly and silently, not reacting other than to smile at Mr. Phillips. The others in his group, equally unsure as to Mr. Phillips intent, reacted as you would expect any group of confused, boisterous teenagers.

Of course the event was captured on video. Of course it “went viral” as they say and exploded into a media shitstorm.

Initially, based on a short excerpt of the video, Nicholas Sandmann was the labeled as the aggressor. He (along with his fellow students) was accused of “mocking” Mr. Phillips. His smile was widely interpreted as a smirk.  Apparently, smirking is enough to get you labeled a racist these days.

The Black Hebrew Nationals, the wieners who started this whole thing have evaporated. No media attention has been focused on them. Nobody has interviewed them, much less bothered to even find them. All of the attention has been focused like a laser on the “confrontation” between a teenage boy and an old man – a Vietnam veteran for God's sake!

Well... Not so fast.

It turns out that Mr. Phillips is something of a professional agitator and activist. He has been in the media before, and not in a good way. Some would say that comes with the territory of being an “activist.” Change does not always happen voluntarily; sometimes it takes a person who's willing to stand up be the lightning rod.

Sometime after that little face-to-face-off at the Lincoln Memorial, Mr. Phillips and his group attempted to disrupt a High Mass at Washington D.C.'s Basilica of the National Shrine. Wisely, church leaders locked the doors and did not let Mr. Phillips enter. And it's a good thing they did! If Phillips and his group actually had carried out their plan, they would have found out the hard way that disrupting a religious service is a hate-crime.

Nathan Phillips has been characterized as a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam vet. These claims are directly due to statements that he himself has made. Luckily there's this thing called a DD-214, a military form issued to every serviceman upon separation from the military. Luckily there is also this thing called the Freedom of Information Act. It turns out that the “Vietnam War vet” claims were either misleading or patently false.

Ol' Nathan enlisted under an adopted name of “Nathaniel Stanard.” The truth is that he was actually in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years! The truth is also that he never went to Vietnam, which was winding down by the time Phillips-Stanard enlisted. He served stateside. During his time in the Marines he went AWOL three times before given a general discharge – as a Private. (It might seem unusual, given the length of time he was in the military that Phillips never advanced beyond Private. Some have speculated as to why. I surmise that after his third AWOL stint, he was busted back to Private and kicked out.)

Not exactly your garden-variety war hero. But hey, he was a Marine, so I'll cut him some slack.

When the whole fiasco erupted on the media, Nicholas Sandmann was targeted as the bad guy. Despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, he was the claimed aggressor! But he was the easiest one to blame, being a (privileged) white teenager wearing a MAGA hat...you know, an obvious racist. Extremely nasty things were said about him on the internet.

The Covington Catholic School (“CovCath”) and the Bishop of the Diocese of Covington issued a joint statement which pretty much convicted the boys and said that an investigation would lead to disciplinary action and possibly expulsion from the school. Seems like the bishop had already made up his mind, like much of America did as well. So much for objectivity, eh, yer Excellency?

Well now we know the truth. As usual there was more to the story...a LOT more to the story than was conveyed in the short video clip that was initially released. Some news outlets had to retract and apologize for their initial reporting of this story. Some still tried to make the “CathCov” boys out to be the bad guys. The Bishop of the Diocese of Covington had to retract his initial statement of condemnation of the boys and apologize. He said they felt “bullied” into making a statement before all the facts were known. Really. Twitter, for their part, suspended the account of the person who posted that incomplete and intentionally inflammatory video. But all of this was too little/too late. The damage had already been done. You cannot un-ring a bell.

The most bizarre thing I saw was an interview that Nicholas Sandmann gave on NBC's “Today” show. He was grilled by smiling (smirking?) Savannah Guthrie, who obviously still saw Sandmann and his fellow students as the instigators, the ones who should have walked away from all the abuse hurled at them.

At one point, Ms. Guthrie asked of Nicholas perhaps one of the most stupid questions I've ever heard from a TV reporter. She said, ”There's something aggressive about...standing there...standing your ground. You both stood your ground. And it was like a stare-down. What do you think of that now...when you think of that moment?”

Sometimes I wonder what planet these TV “personalities” are from? She actually thinks that it's “aggressive” to just stand there passively, smiling while some crazy Indian guy beats a drum in your face?! Idiot. I would've smacked her and shown her what “aggression” really looks like. “Here's how I react to stupid questions, toots!”

However, the teenager responded to the inane question in a more calm and measured tone of voice, and with more poise than me, obviously. What should Nicholas have done, run away like a little coward? I mean, for one thing I would've pushed ol' Injun Joe back and said, ”Get the (bleep!) outta my face, gramps! Come at me again and I'll shove that (bleeping!) drumstick up yer (bleep!).”.

This is why I don't go out in public much.

This story is a classic example of going off half-cocked and over-reacting to a little piece of video before the whole story is known. It's not the first time this has happened. Despite the plaintive bleating and half-baked, insincere apologies from some in the media, it won't be the last.

HERE is a pretty good, objective (and brief) article on the event.