On Wednesday's Today, NBC co-host Savannah Guthrie confronted Michael Brown's mother, Leslie McSpadden, as gently as you possibly could about her husband encouraging the latest round of Ferguson rioting.
First, Guthrie said to Brown’s father, Michael Brown, Sr.: “You really made a point, as this was about to be released, this grand jury news, to call for peaceful protests. Unfortunately, that hasn't always happened. “
Then she turned to McSpadden: “And there was a video that circulated about Monday night, Leslie. I want to show it to you. In the video we see your husband, what appears to be, stirring up the crowd. Take a look at it. I want to ask you about it on the other side.”
The video displayed McSpadden's current husband (and Brown’s stepfather) Louis Head repeatedly yelling at protesters from the top of a car to “burn this bitch down.”
Guthrie soft-pedaled it: ”I know you were there, in the crowd. this is just after the news came out. What do you have to say about that?” Not "How is this not encouraging violence and destruction?" Just a "Please talk" nudge.
McSpadden answered, "That he was just emotional." She blamed the white governor for the unrest: "I don't feel that he stirred the crowd. The crowd was already stirred. It's been stirring since August 9th. I hold -- I wouldn't hold him accountable for that. That comes from a higher power, elected official and it's called the governor."
Guthrie didn't suggest that was a lame answer. She again just nudged: "Can you explain what you mean by that?"
McSpadden kept blaming whites: "They stirred the pot. They had everyone on edge. They had everyone in an uproar and had the city on edge, basically, since August 9th."
Brown Sr. defended Head, too. “Who knows what you would do if this was your child laying on the ground for four hours and you find out that the killer isn’t going to be brought to trial,” he said.
This exchange had an echo of the bizarre Erin Burnett exchange where she seemed unconvinced that "Burn this bitch down" is a call to rioting, and let the leader of the NAACP deny the obvious. If a mob stood outside the studios of CNN or NBC making these noises, would they suggest this wasn't a call to burn down CNN or NBC?
Being sympathetic to Michael Brown's parents doesn't have to be so extreme that it avoids the obvious meaning of threatening words, or pretends the words mean anything but their plain intention.
Try not to be shocked: Today.com and MSNBC.com skipped over this entirely in their reporting on the interview.
