It looks like the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, is choosing to become an active participant in the covering for the failure by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to carry out his most basic duty as the state's chief executive in a timely fashion.
The AP's unbylined three-paragraph report published at 2:12 PM ET this afternoon acts as if the Guard had a meaningful presence in Ferguson last night. It didn't. It also describes the looters, thugs and miscreants who ran wild last night as "protesters" and "demonstrators."
Here is the full AP report as of 2:12 p.m. (colored underlines are mine):
Notes:
(red lines) — "Additional" members? Uh, guy and gals at AP, to provide "additional members," you first need to have some members present. That was not the case last night. In a completely indefensible move, there was no Guard presence on the streets of Ferguson, or even anywhere else in Ferguson, last night. In a video that "somehow" is only visible in a few places, one of them being the indispensable Gateway Pundit, Ferguson's Mayor says that he begged for Guard help — and was ignored:
MAYOR: Unfortunately, I know I've been on the phone in contact with the County Executive's Office. I know he has requested, I am requesting, have requested the National Guard troops to come out from the command post to help restore order along the business district. We have not seen that.
It's my understanding that the commanders out on the streets have requested this, and those calls have gone unheeded at this point. So, at this point, unless we can get the current situation stabilized, right now, it doesn't appear that there's any end in sight.
And we need to have the Governor step up, give us the resources that he's promised from the beginning, stated that he would have a strong response, the resoources necessary would be provided, they have NOT been provided so far. We need that right now.
TV NEWS REPORTER: So Mayor, you're saying that you have asked for the National Guard's help, others have asked for it, and no one has responded. Is that correct?
MAYOR: Well let me be clear. I mean, I've called every number that I've gotten to get through. And all I've been able to do is leave messages. I know that my understanding from my conversations with represenatives from the County Executive's Office, he's made those requests directly, and has not gotten a clear answer. I've even reached out to our state officeholders and even federal officeholders. Right now I don't have any more information to give you as to the status of whether or not they'll be deployed.
An unbylined 3:46 p.m. AP report now quotes the Mayor as saying that the Guard "was not deployed in enough time to save all of our businesses" and called the delay 'deeply concerning.'" So to the extent the Guard arrived at all, it wasn't until after midnight CT; by then virtually all the serious damage had been done.
In one of the live feeds I saw last night, at about 11:00 PM CT, a female Fox Channel 2 reporter observed that there was no Guard presence anywhere in the town, and wondered how that could possibly be, given the mayhem that was occurring. Join the club, ma'am.
(green lines) The minute you commit an unprovoked violent act, you're no longer a "protester" or "demonstrator," and the press badly needs to adjust its reporting to reflect that reality. You're a vandal if you're damaging someone else's property, a shoplifter if you're stealing it, or an arsonist if you're burning it.
(purple lines) So even if the Guard is finally deployed in Ferguson this evening, they'll be limited to protecting the Ferguson Police Department, and won't be out on the streets (the AP's 3:46 p.m. report still says the same thing). So why, other than the criminals needing to take a breather after a long night of carrying out free stuff, should anyone think that tonight will be any different from last night?
(blue lines) Don't you love that passive voice? Who burned down the buildings, AP? And these weren't just randomly selected "buildings." The structures torched were primarily businesses, where several owners, largely if not mostly blacks, had invested their livelihoods, and where many employees who no longer have jobs worked.
Several days ago, as I noted here at NewsBusters, the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration's Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder were "frustrated" that Nixon had even called up the Guard — a common-sense move any Governor should take without a second thought in threatening situations such as these. They claimed that Nixon had "escalated" matters merely by calling the Guard into the area.
Did DOJ, Holder, and the Obama administration "successfully" intimidate Nixon into having the Guard stand down for hours as Ferguson burned? Did that stop the "escalation" from occurring, Team Obama?
UPDATE: Now a 4:24 p.m. revision of AP's report (saved here) now says that "Nixon says 700 guardsmen were in the area on Monday night, when more than a dozen buildings were set on fire and otherwise vandalized." Why weren't they deployed when and where they were needed, Governor?
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
