Amidst all the media hysteria and
political posturing in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riot, IMHO, Conrad Black is still thinking through the reporting and editorializing quite clearly.
This piece is on the American Greatness website, and here are just a few
morsels:
Almost
everything about the Charlottesville riot was disgraceful except the conduct of
the president. The move to take down the statue of General Robert E. Lee was
nonsense. Lee has few rivals as the greatest general in American history
(Grant, Sherman, MacArthur, and Eisenhower perhaps). He opposed the secession
of Virginia from the Union but, as was common in the South then (and has not
entirely died out in any region of the United States today), believed he owed
his first loyalty to his state over the United States. He was less dedicated to
the virtues of slavery than was Charlottesville’s most famous son, Thomas
Jefferson, founder of the University, neighbor at Monticello, and, of course,
author of the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal.”
.
. .
As
the day unfolded, it was clear that orders had been given to the local police
to ensure that a serious fracas occurred. The police did nothing to
disperse the armed groups on each side, on several occasions herded them toward
each other to encourage combat, and then withdrew at times to facilitate the
violence. It must be assumed that orders for an insufficient law enforcement
and ineffectual rules of engagement emanated ultimately from the governor of
Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, the ne
plus ultra of Clintonian zeal and cynicism, and former Democratic
Party chairman.
.
. .
The
facts of Charlottesville should be ascertained by impartial investigation,
prosecution, and exposure, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised they
will be.
This
incident is of a piece with the mindless violence at Berkeley and other
university campuses. The nihilists and anarchists of both sides want bloody
conflict and vandalism, and most of the Democrats and the anti-Trump
Republicans and the national media are trying to pin the phenomenon on Trump. .
. .
Read
the whole thing here.
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