Jussie Smollett is guilty, guilty as sin, and the Left has been completely wrong-footed in their latest attempt to tar dissidents from their agenda as violent, racist hatemongers. (Don’t worry; they’ll keep trying.) But being a Leftist means you never have to say you’re sorry, because you will seldom, if ever, be called to account for your false statements, however outrageous and incendiary they may have been; everything is forgiven if you’re advancing the cause of our right-thinking moral superiors. Thus it was a bit of a surprise, given the sycophantic posture of the establishment media whenever a Democrat is in the White House, that Jen Psaki was actually asked about the inflammatory and false statements made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris about the Smollett case. Typically, however, she deflected attention away from them and onto none other than the Left’s favorite whipping boy, a Florida man known as Donald J. Trump. Really, what would the Left do without him?
Psaki was asked, “Both the president and the vice president tweeted at the time of the attack. The president tweeted, ‘What happened to Jussie Smollett must never be tolerated in this country. We’re with you, Jussie.’ The vice president called it ‘an attempted modern-day lynching.’ Since the guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgement when a crime is alleged?”
The press secretary was not in the mood to issue any mea culpas. Instead, she said, “I think there are lessons learned perhaps for everybody who commented at the time, including former president Trump.” She quoted Trump saying of the alleged attack on Smollett, “I can tell you that it’s horrible, it doesn’t get worse.”
A reporter asks about Biden and Harris’ tweets on Jussie Smollett.
“Since the guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgement when a crime is alleged?”
Psaki: “There are lessons learned, perhaps for everybody … including former president Trump.” pic.twitter.com/wtfzWnCart
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 10, 2021
This was supremely disingenuous, even more so than Psaki usually is. While it is true that Trump’s immediate reaction to the Smollett case as it was initially reported in January 2019, before it became clear that the whole thing was a hoax, was, “I think that’s horrible. It doesn’t get worse as far as I’m concerned.” However, once it was clear that Smollett was lying, Trump was unequivocal. When Smollett was arrested in February 2019, Trump tweeted: “What about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments?” He declared in March 2019, “I think the case in Chicago is an absolute embarrassment to our country and I have asked that it be — that they look at it. Somebody has to at least take a very good hard look.”
In contrast, on January 29, 2019, Biden tweeted, “What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. 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. We are with you, Jussie.” On the same day, Kamala Harris tweeted, “@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”
Related: Can We Stop Pretending Joe Biden Ever Cared About Unity and Compromise?
Both tweets are still up as of this writing. Biden’s has been retweeted 17,700 times; Harris’ 21,600 times. (Remember, Biden got 81 million votes!) Jen Psaki was handed an opportunity to acknowledge that Biden and Harris had rushed to judgment, and instead she pointed a finger at Trump, the only person mentioned to have reversed his initial stance once the truth of the case became clear.
This is yet another indication of the true agenda of this administration. The Biden and Harris tweets are still available to mislead the uninformed and misinformed, and to work toward accomplishing what Smollett’s hoax was designed to accomplish in the first place: the demonization of Trump supporters, and the man himself, as hate-filled, bigoted and violent. The Biden administration is more interested in exacerbating the already severe divisions in American public life by relentlessly smearing its opponents than it is in actually achieving the national unity Biden has claimed to be trying to restore. Jill Biden recently said, “I don’t care if it’s a red state or a blue state. I think, you know, Joe is the president for all Americans.”
Technically, he is, yes, but nothing has been clearer in this disastrous first year of the Biden regime than the fact that all their talk of unity and compromise was just a smokescreen for a remarkably intransigent administration, adamant in its unwillingness to compromise or find common ground. If this administration really cared about national unity, Biden and Harris would take down their Smollett tweets and apologize to Donald Trump’s supporters for their rush to judgment. Yeah, pigs will fly, and fly first class, before that happens.
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