Monday, March 18, AD 2024 11:23pm

Fake News

 

I am sure the mainstream media will be printing full retractions, once the first class of porcine aviators graduate from flight school:

 

After Friday’s “March for Life” in Washington, D.C., a group of boys from an all-boys Catholic high school in Kentucky were assembled near the Lincoln Memorial, awaiting the buses that would take them home. During the wait some of the boys encountered a Native American Vietnam Veteran, Nathan Phillips, who was beating a drum. A brief video of the incident, which many claimed showed a student mocking or “jeering at” Phillips (as covered by our Sarah Quinlan) went viral. By Saturday afternoon the student was doxxed, threatened with expulsion, and the incident was being used by the usual suspects as yet another example of toxic masculinity and white privilege.

No one, apparently, attempted to talk to the students involved to hear their side or to see if there were any misunderstandings. One student who was in attendance emailed a local television station, then spoke to one of their reporters on the telephone, to share his version of events. WKRC’s Adam Clements tweeted screenshots of the email.

 

The email reads, in part:

Every year, my school attends the March for Life in D.C. and afterward tours the city. Our chaperones and teachers told us to be at the Lincoln Memorial at 5:30 to be ready for the buses to pick us up. 5:30 came around and we were all gathered at the Memorial. As we are an all-male school that loves to get hyped up…and as we have done for years prior, we decided to do some cheers to pass time.

Personally, I don’t think it’s appropriate to be doing school cheers in that environment. But that’s just me. There is nothing wrong with what is described so far. The student continued:

“In the midst of our cheers we were approached by a group of adults led by Nathan Phillips, with Phillips beating his drum. They forced their way into the center of our group. We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers and we clapped to the beat. He came to stand in front of one of my classmates who stood where he was, smiling and enjoying the experience.

However, after multiple minutes of Mr. Phillips beating his drum directly in the face of my friend (mere centimeters from his nose) we became confused and started wondering what was happening.”

The video posted to YouTube by the Indigenous Peoples March, which Phillips had attended, bears this out. At around 2:20 into the video a boy’s voice is heard saying, “I don’t even know what’s going on.” In response, a female who was with Phillips replied:

“You guys are acting like a mob. That’s what’s going on. F***ing mob mentality. It’s awesome, because you guys are what, 16? How old are you?”

Immediately after that exchange, the camera turns to a black Covington student, who is dancing along to the drumbeat. Some of the boys were chanting along, which could be taken as mocking – or it could be taken as boys who are experiencing a different culture up close and personal for maybe the first time attempting to enjoy it and not really knowing how to appropriately respond.

The email from the Covington student elaborated:

“We did not partake in any physical or verbal abuse, did not chant “build the wall” or mock or anything of the like, or seek to incite violence.”

The student linked to three videos, one of which had been taken down from YouTube at the time this article was written. This video shows Phillips approaching the high school students and walking in to the crowd:

 

This video shows the two sides debating, and the one exchange that stood out to me was when one adult told a black Covington student, “When you get old enough, they’re going to steal your organs.”

 

Go here to read the rest.  Yep, fake news is a problem, and most of it is produced by the mainstream media.  If you are a conservative, a believing Catholic or a white male you are fair game for the would be commissars of the Fourth Estate.

 

Update I:  Archbishop Kurtz wasted no time tossing the Catholic students under the bus, but he is getting considerable push back on twitter.  Go here to read about it.  We Catholics are led by idiots and worse.

 

Update II:  Statement of Nick Sandmann.  Sorry that you live in such crazy times kid:

I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me.

I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protestor. I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial at 4:30 p.m. I was told to be there by 5:30 p.m., when our busses were due to leave Washington for the trip back to Kentucky. We had been attending the March for Life rally, and then had split up into small groups to do sightseeing.
When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I am not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them. I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group.
The protestors said hateful things. They called us “racists,” “bigots,” “white crackers,” “faggots,” and “incest kids.” They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would “harvest his organs.” I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear.
Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. The chants are commonly used at sporting events. They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school. Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chants. We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group.
At no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants. I did not witness or hear any students chant “build that wall” or anything hateful or racist at any time. Assertions to the contrary are simply false. Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protestors.
After a few minutes of chanting, the Native American protestors, who I hadn’t previously noticed, approached our group. The Native American protestors had drums and were accompanied by at least one person with a camera.
The protestor everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.
I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers.
I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict. I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.
During the period of the drumming, a member of the protestor’s entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we “stole our land” and that we should “go back to Europe.” I heard one of my fellow students begin to respond. I motioned to my classmate and tried to get him to stop engaging with the protestor, as I was still in the mindset that we needed to calm down tensions.
I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protestor. He did not make any attempt to go around me. It was clear to me that he had singled me out for a confrontation, although I am not sure why.
The engagement ended when one of our teachers told me the busses had arrived and it was time to go. I obeyed my teacher and simply walked to the busses. At that moment, I thought I had diffused the situation by remaining calm, and I was thankful nothing physical had occurred.
I never understood why either of the two groups of protestors were engaging with us, or exactly what they were protesting at the Lincoln Memorial. We were simply there to meet a bus, not become central players in a media spectacle. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever encountered any sort of public protest, let alone this kind of confrontation or demonstration.
I was not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation. I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me — to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.
I harbor no ill will for this person. I respect this person’s right to protest and engage in free speech activities, and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week. I believe he should re-think his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make.
I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family’s name. My parents were not on the trip, and I strive to represent my family in a respectful way in all public settings.
I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.
I love my school, my teachers and my classmates. I work hard to achieve good grades and to participate in several extracurricular activities. I am mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen — that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans. I did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that.
I cannot speak for everyone, only for myself. But I can tell you my experience with Covington Catholic is that students are respectful of all races and cultures. We also support everyone’s right to free speech.
I am not going to comment on the words or account of Mr. Phillips, as I don’t know him and would not presume to know what is in his heart or mind. Nor am I going to comment further on the other protestors, as I don’t know their hearts or minds, either.
I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S. Marine veteran.
I can only speak for myself and what I observed and felt at the time. But I would caution everyone passing judgement based on a few seconds of video to watch the longer video clips that are on the internet, as they show a much different story than is being portrayed by people with agendas.
I provided this account of events to the Diocese of Covington so they may know exactly what happened, and I stand ready and willing to cooperate with any investigation they are conducting.

Update III:  The Daily Caller has a list of shame of the number of idiots who ran with the initial mainstream media coverage and attacked the students.  National Review Online, which I sometimes have mistaken for a conservative source, accused the boys of “spitting on the cross”.  Go here to read the list of shame.  Rule one of basic journalism used to be that the initial reports of anything were usually largely wrong.  Of course this was back in the days when there was some distinction between journalism and Leftist propaganda.

Update IV:   This piece of virtue signaling tripe was written by Nicholas Frankovich, Deputy Managing Editor of National Review. It was sent down the memory hole by National Review Online, but the internet is forever:

It appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. “Bullying” is a worn-out word and doesn’t convey the full extent of the evil on display here.

For some of us, the gospel stories of Jesus’s passion and death are so familiar we no longer hear them. The evangelists are terse in their descriptions of the humiliations heaped on Jesus in the final hours before his crucifixion, the consummate humiliation. Read the accounts again or, if you’d rather not, watch the video. The human capacity for sadism is too great.

The man the crowd ridiculed is Nathan Phillips, an elder of the Omaha tribe. He was in Washington for the Indigenous Peoples March, on Friday. It coincided with the March for Life, which Covington Catholic High School organized a contingent of students to attend. According to Phillips, their confrontation with him, in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, involved a disagreement about “the wall.” He’s against it. They’re for it. Some of them, including the boy who makes himself the co-star of the video by stepping forward and getting in Phillips’s face, wore “Make America Great Again” hats.

They confused issues. Over the years, I’ve heard (and perpetrated, I confess) some imaginative definitions of the “seamless garment,” or “consistent ethic of life.” It’s a matter of identifying a common principle that can be shown to underlie and unite various causes — the abolition of abortion, of euthanasia, of the death penalty, of you name it — that most people would say are disparate and unrelated. How heightened border security might be of a piece with protecting unborn children is less intuitively obvious than most such hypothetical linkages I’ve encountered.

Among the unfortunate messages that the Covington students are sending through the video, several versions of which have gone viral, is that in its heart the pro-life movement in the United States in 2019 is less concerned to advocate for human rights than to cheer for one of the two major political parties or, more broadly, for one side in the great divide between Right and Left, or red and blue, as if the abortion debate were a Yankees–Red Sox game. Don’t do that if you want to persuade Democrats and independents who are ambivalent about abortion to hear you out on why their lives mattered even when they were gestating, and on why the lives of those who at any given moment are conceived but not yet born matter no less.

In a joint statement, Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington apologized, condemning the students’ actions and noting that their conduct “is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.” I don’t know how Phillips would describe his religious affiliation. He speaks of indigenous traditions. Some people who observe them integrate them with Christianity, but some don’t. In any case, keeping in mind the parable of the proper priests and the Good Samaritan, whose religious practice Jesus’s listeners thought was wrong, listen to Phillips reflect on his experience on the Mall. Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.

Update V:  Go here to read Dave Griffey’s take at Daffey Thoughts on this debacle:

The poor boy at the center of the storm did nothing at all but stand there and smile (passive resistance anyone?). And yet, conservatives (always quick to lick up the spittle of the Left in order to curry favor), the Catholic Church and the March for Life were all quick to condemn. He is a political enemy of the Left, he has white skin – do we need to know anything else?

Even now, the school is hunkering down and telling the press as of today (days after the event), that it’s willing to consider expulsion; destroy the lives of the kids: the Left says so. Meanwhile the Archbishop and the March for Life immediately denounced the white skin teens as the racists they are. In fairness, the March for Life site I saw has pulled the post (though an apology would be better).

By now we know it didn’t happen as initially reported. Add this to the growing list in the last couple weeks of false news stories and lies promoted by the press in order to attack the Left’s opponents and foment new forms of racism, bigotry, prejudice and discrimination. That so many who call themselves pro-life, much less Christian, are so quick to fall in line behind this evil and oppression just reminds you why we’ve seen the sad events of history that blemish the Faith’s witness.

Update VI:  Nicholas Frankovich has apologized:

Early Sunday morning, I posted a “strongly worded” (Rich Lowry’s description) condemnation of the conduct, seen far and wide on video, of a group of high-school students at the conclusion of the March for Life on Friday afternoon. I was preachy and rhetorically excessive, and I regret it. The overheated post I wrote has been taken down. Let this apology stand in its stead, both here on the Corner and in the memory of readers who justifiably objected to my high-handedness.

 

 

 

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 10:54am

The lying sacs of excrement on WABC TV NYC made out as if it was in front of the Vietnam War Memorial.

Every thing you hear, read or see from the media is a lie.

Dave Griffey
Dave Griffey
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 10:59am

How many such lies and fake stories have been floated in just the last few weeks? I know I got burned with the whole Cortez dance video outrage bunk. Then we have the poor Jasmine Barnes who was rallied around for five days until we discovered her shooters were black. There have been others. And now this. I mean, this is becoming malignant in our modern press.

BTW, I’m not seeing a video after “walking into the crowd:”

TomD
TomD
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 11:06am

The school need to retract its apology NOW, and demand one in return.

TomD
TomD
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 11:09am

BTW, if the school is Covington Latin, then it is not all-boys

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 11:51am

Fr. James Martin, SJ is all over this like stink on poop at his twitter page:

https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ

God forgive me for saying this, but He may have to apologize for having struck Uzzah down for merely touching the Ark of the Old Covenant in order to steady it while it was on its way via ox cart to Jerusalem in 2nd Samuel chapter 6. I despise liberals.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 12:02pm

I see desperation in a camp that has no future. A camp composed of lies, deceit and misinformation.
Like other such camps it’s days are numbered. A pitiful bunch.

Saint John 15:5;

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Nothing!
They are just gnats. Pests that we must endure until the Truth calls us home.

ken
ken
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 12:16pm

LQC, Do you think Fr. Martin as a man of God will apologize for pre-judging these kids?

There is a very dangerous mob mentality that is being fostered by social media. Pounce, attack, destroy before I have all the data. Then even if I’m proven wrong I still won’t apologize because I’m morally superior and those other guys are evil. With the loss of the notion of sin, people have shed all sense of shame or humility. Either a mass conversion must occur or this darkness will become worse and ultimately deadly.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 1:42pm

Minitru doesn’t make mistakes.

Now get your hate on, Smith. Big Brother is watching.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 4:35pm

We may be led by idiots. What’s more salient is that we’re led by people who have little nerve or loyalty to their own, largely, one suspects, because their visceral understanding of who their own are doesn’t include any of their flock. Rod Dreher (no surprise) and Robert George (big surprise) made ill-considered remarks about this which they’ve retracted.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 5:04pm

I’ve seen screen shots of some liberal liars apologizing. About 50 years too late to say you’re sorry, you rat bastards.

The HS boys were the victims. The wild Indians burst in among them as they were waiting for their bus, and started their war dance.

,Ernst, Orwell didn’t imagine they’d wax this toady.

Before I received verification (I sensed it was) it was a lie, and saw on TV the (reputed) Vietnam vet (I wondered if they threw feces at him when he came home) and his mouth full of misshapen teeth; what came to my alleged mind was he had been wounded in the face by an NVA RPG and that was how the Army fixed him up.

Make the World a better place. Punch a liberal in the face.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 5:25pm

Noodling around with a couple of databases, It appears this fellow may have been born in 1955. If that’s the case, the only deployment he could have had to VietNam would have been as an embassy guard or to some Navy vessel or Air base within range.

The Catholic Teacher
The Catholic Teacher
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 6:38pm

“Do you think Fr. Martin as a man of God will apologize for pre-judging these kids?”

I do assume “Fr. Martin” is a man of God.

Mary De Voe
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 7:12pm

Preventing these young men from their planned journey is called assault. One touch is called battery

Jeanne Bergeron
Jeanne Bergeron
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 7:21pm

Since when do news stations retract stories. They thrive on fake news

Joseph P.
Joseph P.
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 9:31pm

Here is an especially smugly self-righteous article from courtesy of Patheos: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/chaosandoldnight/2019/01/maga-at-the-march-for-life/ . The last couple of paragraphs are especially disgusting.

Like the saying goes, a lie can travel around the world several times before the truth can put its pants on. And by that time the rocket has already launched, and the damage has been done.

It is downright depressing how people who should know better rush to judgment and, instead of trying to calm mob tensions, become part of the mob. The wise person waits for a clearer picture to emerge before making any judgment. Wisdom is sorely lacking in today’s society. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 9:53pm

It’s been pointed out elsewhere (a href=https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/319246/>here, here) that these kids are collateral damage from the battle space prep currently underway in anticipation of Gingsburg’s retirement from the Supreme Court.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Sunday, January 20, AD 2019 10:42pm

Another interesting angle has been the question among Veterans groups as to whether Mr. Nathan Phillips could actually have served in Vietnam—since he was 64 years of age in 2018. That would’ve made him an 18-year-old high school graduate in June, 1972; and it’s possible he could’ve done the 8-week Boot Camp and then been deployed to Vietnam. But the final pullout of troops by Nixon occurred March 29, 1973. That is a very small window for him to have been in VN.. But possible.

Veterans organizations that have checked his name on VA lists find a “Nathan Phillips”, but that individual is much older than age 64. Hmm.

DonL
DonL
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 3:41am

I smell a set up with the whole thing–Native Americans victims of those evil pro-lifers? This is much too convenient and has the fingerprint of the left, that is completely out of the diabolical closet now and appears they will stop at nothing. They care not how all that’s good about America breaks, as long as it breaks.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 4:04am

Joseph P said; “Wisdom is sorely lacking in today’s society.”

The young man, who Mr. Phillip’s is beating his drum just inches away from his face, is wise. He isn’t provoking Mr. Phillip’s. He is standing his ground. I do not see the young man attacking or being disrespectful to the drummer.

How many young men would be as wise in that same situation?

Out of respect for Joseph P.
I’m in agreement with you that this non-news was spread like the “campfire” disaster on November 8th.
Unwise the fools who rushed in to feed the fire gasoline. What a shame. Anything to try to tarnish the March for Life and pro-life in general.

Yes. The enemies of life smell the end of their judicial dominance relating to R v W. Let us pray to St. Joseph that Ms. RBG has a happy Death when she’s called before the just judge.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 6:55am

I won’t go after another vet even when he’s used as a pawn for the forces of evil.

I looked at “Chief Nathan’s” age and thought it unlikely he saw action in Vietnam. By 1972, President Nixon’s Vietnamization policy had handed over to the ARVN most ground ops. I (I was in the US) had a friend KIA in Apr 1972 when our troops needed to pitch in to stop a huge NVA attack.

I immediately thought the media lie [redundant] occurred at the Vietnam Memorial, and Chief Nathan was “:remembering” with his drum my pale-face friends that died (for each other) over there. In fact, he was “remembering” with his drum the killers that wasted Custer and his US cavalrymen.

Elizabeth Huffman
Elizabeth Huffman
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 7:36am
Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 7:57am

I’m positive that Mr. Phillip’s would be very welcomed at any of the hundreds of Casinos spread across his ancestors land. Go beat it…….

Joseph P.
Joseph P.
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 8:12am

Philip Nachazel,
did you think I was referring to the young man when I wrote about the lack of wisdom in today’s society? In no way did I infer such a thing and I don’t think I wrote anything that should convey such an impression to anybody who bothered to read my whole comment. I was referring mainly to (so-called) journalists, right and left, as well as celebrities, and especially to men of the cloth, including those in the diocese of Covington, who are mainly what I had in mind when I referred to “people who should know better”.

Donald, is it possible that these boys might have a case for a defamation or slander suit against some of their accusers?

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 8:28am

Joseph P

No sir.
I was not referencing the children.
The camp is MSM.
Liars and cheats all.

I agree with your post Joseph.
Wholeheartedly.

Joseph P.
Joseph P.
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 8:29am

Thanks for the link, Elizabeth. One thing that article had in common with those concerning the latest incident is that Mr. Phillips’ account was taken as gospel, as if there could be no other side to the story.

Here’s something else: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/stormy-daniels-wants-build-wall-around-disgusting-punks-filmed-taunting-native-american-protestors-140746359.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=1_14 .

Both Ms. Daniels and the writer of the article are worthy of condemnation for jumping to conclusions, especially the writer.

Joseph P.
Joseph P.
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 8:31am

Thank you, Philip. ????

Dave Griffey
Dave Griffey
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 9:51am

According to the news this morning, the school is doubling down and it’s willing to consider disciplinary actions, up to expulsion, of the students in question. Perhaps that was left over and the school has actually changed. But the fact that these poor kids are being skinned and fighting to avoid having their lives derailed because they are opponents of the Political Left, are white, and the accuser of of a particular ethnicity – and that this is apparently fully endorsed by Catholic and Pro-Life leadership – shows just how many are willing to compromise to keep in the good graces of the powers that be.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 11:38am

If I was a parent of a student at that school, I’d be demanding that any investigation into the alleged conduct of the students also include an investigation of the parents/employees who chaperoned this field trip.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 11:41am

All of this internal betrayal of these poor kids by the “Catholics” within the Church itself, and more-so, their visceral knee-jerk reaction in doing so, all proves who eerily accurate Fulton Sheen’s prophetic warning was:

Fulton Sheen 1948 ~ “[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church. . . . It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.”

“The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he (Satan) will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

. . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion — one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .

. . . But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism.”

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 11:44am

Typo. Should have been “HOW eerily accurate…”

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 11:48am

National Review has posted a new article that is BARELY any better.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/nathan-phillips-lied-the-media-bought-it/

And if you click on the comments there are a LOT of people there taking the magazine to task.

I have found myself IMMENSELY disappointed by many in this incident. And that’s only because I know Don wouldn’t approve of me voicing my true feelings.

trackback
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 12:05pm

[…] Fake News: The Covington Catholic Episode […]

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 12:53pm

I got lucky and the first I heard of this was a very nice lady sharing the proof that it was a lie.

Had to be a lie, since the drummer activist had video– but what got pushed was a photograph.

ExNOAAman
ExNOAAman
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 4:33pm

Duke lacrosse;
except no stripper.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 6:34pm

Or like the time that angry mob of tea party activists accosted Speaker Pelosi and members of the Black Congressional Caucus and dragged John Lewis off to be lynched.

Or at least that’s the way Lewis told it.

Joseph P.
Joseph P.
Monday, January 21, AD 2019 7:26pm

Thank you, Donald. I’m not a litigious person myself, but these boys and their parents should demand apologies and retractions. The list of potential defendants must run in the thousands.

Cato
Admin
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 6:55am

National Review has posted a new article that is BARELY any better.

Kyle Smith’s article ripped the media to shreds and in no uncertain terms said the boys had been horribly misrepresented. If that’s barely better than “the boys crucified Christ”, then you have an interesting set of standards.

I know it’s popular in certain quarters to dump on NRO because many are not aboard the Trump train, but I’m not sure what more could have been done. One writer wrote a post that was eventually taken down (and apologized for), and subsequently every one else who has written about the topic has been fiercely on the side of the Covington boys. I don’t think the magazine edits what is posted on the website, so it’s not as though there was some sort of general National Review impramatur given for the post. That being said, Frankovich’s apology was weak sauce. He apologized for his tone, but didn’t seem to have reconsidered his initial opinion in light of new evidence. I don’t know how any intellectually honest person could have watched the longer videos and maintained their original position. It’s baffling.

Cato
Admin
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 6:57am

Oh, and as for the diocese, I’ll repeat what I wrote elsewhere. Any person who gives to any diocesan appeal this year is a fool. These institutions need to be starved. Please don’t take it out on your parish. In fact, give more at the parish level and try to find out how you can give in a way that the money doesn’t get kicked back up to the diocese.

Ranger01
Ranger01
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 7:09am

This high school and the Covington Diocese are classic examples of the RCC eating its young.
That any men, young or old, still have faith in this cowardly, corrupt church is a miracle, indeed.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 8:02am

Kyle Smith’s article ripped the media to shreds and in no uncertain terms said the boys had been horribly misrepresented. If that’s barely better than “the boys crucified Christ”, then you have an interesting set of standards.

Ok, I’ll meet you halfway and say it’s “a little” (which is above “barely” and “slightly”). What still angers me were these bits:
I think you are, even if you’re wearing a MAGA hat. Even if you’re an entitled brat. Even if you’re an entitled Catholic brat.

We’ll stipulate that the Catholic boys from a high school in Kentucky were a little obnoxious when an indigenous man named Nathan Phillips banged a drum at them in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday.
. . .
As such, they should have comported themselves better than to jeer and do a tomahawk chop in front of Phillips. Ideally, the kids would have ignored him and walked away.

Yeah. High school kids should ‘walk away’ from where they were told to wait for the bus. And I object to any sense that the boys were “entitled.” So I object to Kyle conceding too much ground to the Left.

I know it’s popular in certain quarters to dump on NRO because many are not aboard the Trump train, but I’m not sure what more could have been done. One writer wrote a post that was eventually taken down (and apologized for), and subsequently every one else who has written about the topic has been fiercely on the side of the Covington boys. I don’t think the magazine edits what is posted on the website, so it’s not as though there was some sort of general National Review impramatur given for t

Can you send me the other articles. I’ve missed the others but I’ll admit I haven’t gone digging around. But I object that Kyle was “on the side” of the boys given the bits I quoted above. He seems to end up agreeing with Mark Shea that “There’s no way you can watch the video and come away saying, ‘Those kids treated Phillips with respect.'” There is apparently never any possibility of joining in and participating along with someone – it’s all mockery. Apparently to show someone respect, we’re all supposed to stand stone still and never react, never dance along.

Oh wait, one kid did stand still and didn’t react at all – and Kyle smith up there called him an entitled brat.

So what should the kids do? That’s the other thing I can’t find from anybody – what the kids should have done that would be impossible to misinterpret by anybody. Kyle demonstrates that the answer is nothing. It’s a kafka trap where you’re already guilty.

What more could have been done? Kyle could have pointed out all of the above himself. He could have refrained from calling them “entitled brats.” He could have pointed out that the boys had no conceivable way to react that would have been media approved.

Because that’s always what seems to happen nowadays. These guys will voice “what should have been done” or “what I would have done.” Then their turn comes around on the dunking stool and that’s when they learn it doesn’t matter. The media will either edit out what they did, or paint it to seem the opposite they intended. You’d THINK they would have already learned this lesson after Kavanaugh which wasn’t that long ago.

Cato
Admin
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 8:22am

If you go to the main National Review site there’s a section just about the Covington kids. I can’t link to them all because I would run afoul of the spam filter, but there are at least four, plus more on twitter from some of the contributors.

I took Smith to be making a rhetorical point – meaning if we were to say that these kids were entitled brats, they shouldn’t have been treated as they were. I didn’t take him to be saying that he thought them to be brats himself, but maybe I misinterpreted his meaning.

I happen to somewhat agree about the hats, only insofar as I think it would be wise for all March for Life participants to avoid partisanship as much as possible. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the hats (as many on the left believe), but I’d have left them at home for the march. Then again, they may very well have purchased them while they were in town. And, obviously, just wearing the hats shouldn’t mean that adults have carte blanche to attack them.

Some of the kids were a bit obnoxious in response, but most of them comported themselves well, especially Sandmann, who unfortunately became the Emanuel Goldstein of the weekend. In fact he clearly made a gesture to one of his classmates to knock it off when he thought his classmate was saying something inappropriate. And considering their age, I do basically agree with you that they were in a no win situation.

All in all, I think Smith is pretty clear in where he places almost all the blame, and this comes across as nitpicking. Honestly, I’m with you in your interpretation of events, Nate, but I view Smith as an ally, not an enemy on this.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 8:48am

Kyle Smith’s article ripped the media to shreds and in no uncertain terms said the boys had been horribly misrepresented. If that’s barely better than “the boys crucified Christ”, then you have an interesting set of standards.

What Kyle Smith’s article doesn’t do is admit that in this case “The Media” include NR, and that’s a problem.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 9:58am

@Cato

If you go to the main National Review site there’s a section just about the Covington kids. I can’t link to them all because I would run afoul of the spam filter, but there are at least four, plus more on twitter from some of the contributors.

Ah ok. Thanks. I scrolled down (is it me, or is the site slowly getting unreadable?) and finally saw the bar. I’m disappointed that “see more” took me to the general “US” landing page and not specifically to a covington section. I do see a VDH piece which is good. One link is just to Rich Lowry linking the student’s statement. I also liked this piece by Dougherty. Jim Geraghty’s piece is a bit like Kyle’s only less attacking towards the boys. I’ll need to dig into the corner, I’ll do a full retraction if I see some of them calling out each other or performing more overt mea culpas. (it’s been awhile, but I know that stuff is often on the corner)

I’ll accept your testimony on twitter. I’m on there but it’s such a pain to try and use I barely bother any more (except to see the latest Star Wars prequel memes).

I took Smith to be making a rhetorical point – meaning if we were to say that these kids were entitled brats, they shouldn’t have been treated as they were. I didn’t take him to be saying that he thought them to be brats himself, but maybe I misinterpreted his meaning.

Considering part of my complaints is that Mark rejects alternate interpretations, I guess it would be on me to acknowledge that you have made the case for a fair alternate interpretation as well. A fair point, sir. A fair point made indeed.

I happen to somewhat agree about the hats, only insofar as I think it would be wise for all March for Life participants to avoid partisanship as much as possible. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the hats (as many on the left believe), but I’d have left them at home for the march. Then again, they may very well have purchased them while they were in town. And, obviously, just wearing the hats shouldn’t mean that adults have carte blanche to attack them.

I read some testimony that they were purchased there in DC as souvenirs. Then again with a crowd that size it’s good odds there was a mix (some brought them, some bought them).

Some of the kids were a bit obnoxious in response, but most of them comported themselves well, especially Sandmann, who unfortunately became the Emanuel Goldstein of the weekend. In fact he clearly made a gesture to one of his classmates to knock it off when he thought his classmate was saying something inappropriate. And considering their age, I do basically agree with you that they were in a no win situation.

*salute* I think it’s not really their age, just being white, male, and christian there put them in a no-win situation. But we do agree in the general.

All in all, I think Smith is pretty clear in where he places almost all the blame, and this comes across as nitpicking. Honestly, I’m with you in your interpretation of events, Nate, but I view Smith as an ally, not an enemy on this.

Another fair point. I wouldn’t consider him… an enemy, exactly. I’ve read a few things by him I have enjoyed. But after this I’m not sure how much of an ally I would trust. I’m working on an article about this and what I’ve found that seems to be such betrayal is that many of these conservatives seem to be trusting the media over their political fellows. They may not have to like other conservatives, I can understand that, but this group should know better than to ever take the media’s word at face value. That’s where some of the frustration comes from. (see also: My frustrations with many conservatives reacting to Dr Jordan B Peterson)

@Don

I am astonished the teens were as well behaved as they were in what probably struck them as a somewhat frightening encounter with loosely wired individuals in the big bad city.

In other words… they were fairly excellent exemplars of Catholicism? 😉 This filthy Protestant would say so. I dare say they’ve done a better job representing Catholicism than many of its leaders over that weekend.

Cato
Admin
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 11:24am

What Kyle Smith’s article doesn’t do is admit that in this case “The Media” include NR, and that’s a problem.

Again, though, it’s not National Review – it’s one writer for what is a group blog, just like the American Catholic is a group blog, and I don’t think the entire website or magazine should take a hit.

I think we’re just arguing over degrees of culpability for one institution, otherwise I’m basically on the same page with most of you. I’ll have a post up later on the day. The media did not have a good week, to put it mildly.

I am astonished the teens were as well behaved as they were in what probably struck them as a somewhat frightening encounter with loosely wired individuals in the big bad city.

Again, I pretty much agree with you Don. Some of the kids did or said things I wouldn’t have done or said, but considering the circumstances, they did remarkably well. As you point out, when you’re 16 or 17 and put in the middle of all that, it’s hard to imagine how to handle it without flying off the handle. And again, the irony is that Sandmann was the absolute model for behavior, and he’s the one who became the “face of hate.” Just pathetic.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 11:42am

It’s Jay Nordlinger, Rich Lowry, and Nick Frankovich, (probably others as well) none of whom represented their institution in this matter half so as Nick Sanmann and the other Covington students represented theirs.

So yeah, National Review takes a hit here, because that’s the brand.

Cato
Admin
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 12:57pm

Rich Lowry immediately corrected course and was the one who issued an apology when they pulled Frankovich’s post. I missed Norlinger’s comment because I was mercifully off of Twitter all day.

So no, National Review doesn’t take a hit here, because it’s different people saying different things.

CAM
CAM
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 1:34pm

Where were the adults chaperoning these boys? Boys mostly under age by the looks of it. That’s a legitimate complaint the parents should take up with the school administration. The incident never would have happened if adult chaperones were present. Phillips’s drum and baton was at most 2′ from the 14 y. o. boy’s face and the intimidation went on for quite awhile. That young man showed great presence of mind.
The weather on Friday was bitterly cold. (I know because I was out in it heading to a dr’s appt in a nearby suburb with a high fever). No wonder the kids were jumping around; they were trying to stay warm.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, January 22, AD 2019 3:06pm

Actually Cam according to reports, there were chaperones present – during the first stage of the altercation the boys asked the chaperones if they could begin the school chant.

Exactly where they were in this… I’ve been wondering that too. Though it wouldn’t surprise me they were off chasing some other kid at that moment. I dunno, that is a question worth looking into.

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