STACY MCCAIN: Bearing False Witness: The Case of Jussie Smollett.
Anyone with common sense could see that Jussie Smollett’s story didn’t add up, but evidently none of the Democrats running for president in 2020 has any common sense. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris used almost identical language in proclaiming Smollett the victim of “an attempted modern-day lynching.” Former Vice President Joe Biden declared: “We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts.” Smollett was the victim of “the latest of too many hate crimes against LGBTQ people and people of color,” said New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, adding: “We are all responsible for condemning this behavior and every person who enables or normalizes it.” Other leading Democrats joined this chorus of condemnation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the “racist, homophobic attack… an affront to our humanity,” while New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez asserted that the attack on Smollett was indicative of “the rise of hate crimes.” No Democrat more explicitly pointed the finger of blame than California Rep. Maxine Waters who said “this is happening for a reason.… It’s coming from the President of the United States. He’s dog-whistling every day.”
If the incident which provoked all these denunciations proves to be a hoax, however, will any of these Democrats apologize? Will they suffer any actual consequences for being so disastrously wrong about what happened to Jussie Smollett? No, don’t be silly. Liberal journalists won’t ask Booker, Harris, Biden, or other Democrats to explain why they were so easily deceived. Indeed, the media are already trying to spin the story to rescue Democrats. CNN’s Brian Stelter claimed Saturday that the real problem is that “random websites” had “weaponized” the story, whatever that means. Stelter went on to say of the Smollett hoax that “the motive here is still a mystery at the heart of the story.” Except it’s not really mysterious: Smollett has repeatedly declared his hatred of President Trump, and what better way to damage the president than to frame Republicans for a fake hate crime? And liberal journalists were eager to act as Smollett’s accomplices, as Daily Wire’s Ashe Schow remarked Sunday: “This is absolutely about the media and their constant desire to prove Orange Man Bad no matter how implausible the story.”
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