Eeek! How dare he?!
National Review editor Rich Lowry actually committed the "heresy" of citing the evidence presented to the Ferguson case grand jury on Meet The Press today. Such evidence is rarely cited by liberal circles because it confirms the account given by police officer Darren Wilson. Lowry's flagrant disregard of avoiding the inconvenient truths caused quite a reaction from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post who was left sputtering in reply and from Andrea Mitchell who entertained the audience with her body language outrage.
CHUCK TODD: Rich, what's interesting when you look at whites, whites that live in urban communities believe that we still have a race problem in this country. Whites that live in more rural, basically whiter communities, they don't see the race issue. Do you think that's part of our divide? That maybe rural whites don't see this issue the way folks that live in urban America?
RICH LOWRY: Perhaps, but you look at Ferguson specifically, this is an area where the governmental structures haven't caught up to the demographic change over the last two decades or so. And that's something you take care of simply by organizing and voting. But what I really object to is you can discuss all these problems but let's not pretend this particular incident was something it wasn't. If you look at the most credible evidence, the lessons are really basic. Don't rob a convenience store. Don't fight a policeman when he stops you and try to take his gun. And when he yells at you to stop with his gun drawn, just stop.
ANDREA MITCHELL (interrupting): Whoa!
Be sure to check out Mitchell's body language. It's like she can't believe that someone would actually (GASP!) bring up the facts of the case. Later Eugene Robinson sputters out his reply that leads nowhere:
EUGENE ROBINSON: ...We're not in the re-litigation business so we won't go into the whole thing but there was conflicting testimony, there were witnesses who simply were not believed who said otherwise. And there were witnesses who were believed who, who...
LOWRY: The physical evidence backs up officer Wilson's version. And that's why the grand jury...
Lowry was absolutely right. The physical evidence presented to the grand jury absolutely backs up officer Wilson as Lowry wrote in The Ferguson Fraud:
...the credible evidence (i.e., the testimony that doesn't contradict itself or the physical evidence) suggests that Michael Brown had no interest in surrendering. After committing an act of petty robbery at a local business, he attacked Officer Wilson when he stopped him on the street. Brown punched Wilson when the officer was still in his patrol car and attempted to take his gun from him.
The first shots were fired within the car in the struggle over the gun. Then, Michael Brown ran. Even if he hadn't put his hands up, but merely kept running away, he would also almost certainly be alive today. Again, according to the credible evidence, he turned back and rushed Wilson. The officer shot several times, but Brown kept on coming until Wilson killed him.
And as we saw on Meet The Press, the liberals simply refuse to address the evidence in the case as Lowry also points out:
When the facts didn't back their narrative, they dismissed the facts and retreated into paranoid suspicion of the legal system. It apparently required more intellectual effort than almost any liberal could muster even to say, "You know, I believe policing in America is deeply unjust, but in this case the evidence is murky and not enough to indict, let alone convict anyone of a crime."
Backing up Lowry's Ferguson observations is this Washington Post article by Paul Cassell:
Perhaps the reason for this disinterest in the ballistics report, autopsies and other similar information is that for at least some of Brown’s supporters the facts are, apparently, largely irrelevant because Brown is a metaphorical “symbol” of injustice regardless of what actually happened. A related reason may be that working through this information is time-consuming — and thus beyond the capacity of many commentators. In contrast, the grand jury painstakingly heard sworn testimony from more than 60 witnesses, which is now collected in several thousand pages of transcripts. Reviewing these transcripts reveals some important and essentially indisputable facts. And those facts confirm many critical aspects of Wilson’s account.
...Based on my initial read, so far as I can see there are no significant inconsistencies between the physical evidence and Wilson’s grand jury testimony. Other reviews have likewise not identified readily-apparent examples of problems with Wilson’s testimony. For example, a review of the grand jury testimony by three Associated Press reporters noted numerous examples of witness statements inconsistent with the physical evidence, but offered no examples from Wilson’s testimony.
In the days and weeks ahead as we have the "conversations about race" that the liberals are requesting, the most notable part of these "conversations" will be the avoidance of discussing the evidence in the Ferguson case. If one should boldly inject it into the "conversation," an outrage such as we saw on Meet The Press can be expected.
Exit question: How much would the MTP ratings soar if panelists such as Rich Lowry were allowed to question the guests as was promised (but not fulfilled) by NBC News president Deborah Turness? Meanwhile MTP remains mired in third place with the Meet The Chuck format as Todd hogs all the interviews with the guests.
