ASHE SCHOW: Mob Justice And The Obama Administration:

When someone faces a trial by media, the default public position of the Obama administration has been to support the prevailing narrative. But in three recent high-profile cases, subsequent federal investigations have overturned the conventional wisdom and vindicated the people pilloried for questioning it from the beginning. . . .

Just two weeks ago, the media had another narrative dismantled — the whole notion that unarmed Ferguson resident Michael Brown had put his hands up in surrender but was shot anyway by police officer Darren Wilson.

The narrative spun last summer and fall was that Brown did not fight with or charge at Wilson, as Wilson and some witnesses claimed. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed that the Department of Justice would hold its own investigation of the Brown shooting, despite a grand jury refusing to indict Wilson. Sure enough, DOJ found that Brown had charged and fought the officer before being shot. Based on its finding, the DOJ declined to bring criminal charges against Wilson.

And just a week before the DOJ declined to charge Darren Wilson, the department declined to charge George Zimmerman with civil rights violations. . . .

The point here is that in example after example, the prevailing narrative sold by the media and social justice activists has been disproven after an investigation of the facts. When it comes down to it, it’s cheap and easy for Obama to say something in public to show solidarity with popular opinion. But having to back up that same popular opinion in a legal proceeding — or in Bergdahl’s case, by ignoring a possible crime — is often impossible.

But they wait until the press fever has died. And the Zimmerman hysteria was allowed to burn until after the 2012 elections, while the Ferguson report didn’t come out until after the midterms. In both cases, the mob anger was exploited in an effort to energize black and lefty votes.