Biden proved unable to state that the Texas synagogue hostage-taker was motivated by antisemitism.
Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we highlight the reluctance to call antisemitism what it is, recount the reaction to Glenn Youngkin’s first couple days in office, and hit more media misses.
The Oldest, and Most Acceptable, Form of Bigotry
President Joe Biden does not often choose his words carefully — remember last week when he made equivalencies between George Wallace and Jefferson Davis and Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin?
And to that point, he sees bigotry everywhere — recall that he called Georgia’s new election law “Jim Crow on steroids” last year.
In his political enemies, the president sees not just misguided Americans, but dangerous radicals. Indeed, he’s pledged to defend “our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic.”
The president’s loose lips made this statement on this weekend’s hostage crisis in Texas rather puzzling:
Biden: "I don't think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years… why he was using anti-Semitic & anti-Israeli comments." pic.twitter.com/cOxRB1xLvq
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 16, 2022
There’s not? The man yelling in Arabic, calling for the freeing of a jihadi who demanded no Jews serve on her jury, holding Jews hostage at gunpoint in a synagogue? The same man who reportedly forced the synagogue’s rabbi to call another prominent rabbi in New York in the mistaken belief that an omnipotent Jewish cabal would be capable of freeing his comrade from prison?
The motivation seems quite clear to the rest of us, and it’s frankly worrisome if the president can’t deduce it. To his credit, Biden did make reference to antisemitism in general during his remarks, but the failure to call out Islamist antisemitism in a hostage crisis made a stark contrast to his full-throated denunciation of racism in mostly unremarkable legislation.
And the president was not the only one to fall short on this front. On Saturday night, shortly after the rescue of the Jewish hostages inside a synagogue, the special agent in charge of the bureau’s Dallas field office claimed that the hostage-taker was “singularly focused on one issue & it was not specifically related to the Jewish community.”
Biden's FBI: The Islamist terrorist, who held Jews hostage at a Texas synagogue, on Sabbath, was “singularly focused on one issue” that was not “specifically related to the Jewish community.
He then adds “We are continuing to work to find motive.” pic.twitter.com/RUPFhORWbs
— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) January 16, 2022
Meanwhile, before the hostages were even safely rescued, Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali had concerns that outstripped his worry for the Jewish lives at risk.
You're about to hear some ugly & vicious Islamophobia & anti-Muslim bigotry this weekend from elected officials, commentators and even mainstream media. Hope I'm wrong. People will use it to divide Jewish and Muslim communities for their political agenda. Don't fall for it.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) January 15, 2022
The Associated Press also failed to cover itself in glory through its coverage of the near-tragedy, reporting on Aafia Siddiqui, the jihadi that the hostage-taker sought to free, without mentioning her long history of antisemitism. Before her trial for attempted murder, Siddiqui requested that jurors be subjected to genetic testing for a “Zionist background,” and afterward she declared that “this is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America. That’s where the anger belongs.”
Antisemitism: A form of bigotry so old and so acceptable, it can be denied and underestimated even as it plays out on your television screen.
Youngkin Off the Block
Freshly inaugurated Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin hit the ground running after taking office on Saturday, signing executive orders banning blanket mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory in schools. Progressives took it in stride.
Remember when media people said Youngkin won by **not** being a Trumper, even as he vowed to ban Toni Morrison books to appease white parents and telegraphed that he planned to govern like DeSantis on the virus? Welp, COVID’s gonna have a field day in Virginia. Hide your books! https://t.co/MEz0Kiixqq
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) January 16, 2022
“Mass sickness and death; mixed with ignorance. The standard fare of “modern” Republicanism… well done, Virginia. Well done,” added Reid.
. @brianstelter Press coverage of campaigns is obsessively focused on campaign tactics, praising “clever” candidates no matter the words or intentions of what is said. That is the story of Glenn Youngkin, who out of the gate is governing as a divisive, radical, racist Trumpist. 1
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) January 16, 2022
So much for the silly narrative that Youngkin was some normal R. As @TerryMcAuliffe predicted, he's brought DeSantis anti-mask nuttery to VA. Now at war with several school districts. He's only been in office a few days. Hey, VA this is what you voted for. Best of luck.
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) January 17, 2022
What makes @GlennYoungkin different from other GOP govs who've banned mask mandates is the timing — amid the most infectious variant yet, as record numbers of kids are being hospitalized and staffing shortages are crippling schools. https://t.co/J4Okdxbhiw
— Heidi Przybyla (@HeidiNBC) January 15, 2022
Even White House press secretary Jen Psaki got in on the action.
Hi there. Arlington county parent here (don’t believe you are @GlennYoungkin but correct me if I am wrong). Thank you to @APSVirginia for standing up for our kids, teachers and administrators and their safety in the midst of a transmissible variant. https://t.co/6UeNIYoZCU
— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) January 17, 2022
In other words, a lot of people are shocked that a winning candidate is implementing the agenda he ran on.
The effort to paint Youngkin as a bigot at the head of a death cult is one that’s at odds with his positions as well as his image. Consider not only that the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly despite widespread masking — as the coronavirus has throughout the pandemic — but that the studies have shown that there’s no significant difference in transmission in schools with mask mandates and those without.
Moreover, Youngkin has not pledged to purge the public-school curricula of accounts of the mistreatment of minorities in American history. To the contrary, the executive order he signed states that students must learn about “the horrors of American slavery and segregation,” as well as “our country’s treatment of Native Americans.” It’s aimed at preventing the teaching of divisive ideological lenses, not whitewashing specific historical events.
But more than the facts, it might be his Sesame Street demeanor that exonerates the new governor of the smear campaign against him.
An unforgettable experience. pic.twitter.com/fzRhiRQE9J
— Shawntel Cooper (@ShawntelCooper) January 16, 2022
Good luck painting this guy as a monster.
Headline Fail of the Week
This week’s dishonor goes to LA Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik, who not only authored a column last week titled “Mocking anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes — but may be necessary,” but then appeared on cable news and doubled down on his callous argument days later.
The Monday column focused on the death of Kelly Ernby, a deputy district attorney in Orange County, Calif., who reportedly died of complications from Covid-19 earlier this month after vocally opposing vaccine mandates.
On Saturday, Hiltzik appeared on CNN and argued that though it is culturally appropriate to mourn the dead and remember the good from their lives, it is not “entirely appropriate” in cases where people have died from Covid-19 after spreading misinformation related to the virus or having advocated for a different policy approach.
“So many of them have actually promoted reckless, dangerous policies and . . . they took innocent people along with them,” he said. “Every one of these deaths is a teachable moment and, unfortunately, we haven’t been learning from the lesson that we should be hearing from them.”
Media Misses
-The aforementioned Heidi Przybyla of NBC News insisted that “the combination of masking, distancing and ventilation is what has kept teachers and kids learning IN school. This is not debatable.” This ignores the fact that many schools have remained open without the masking requirement while educational systems in Chicago, Atlanta, and elsewhere have ground to a halt. It’s political willpower, not masks, that keep kids in schools.
–Back in October, the New York Times reportedly declined to run an op-ed submitted by a group of gender-transition experts warning that many transgender clinics have recklessly provided hormone blockers to minors, despite the lack of evidence that such treatment is in their longterm interest. Just three months after editors allegedly told one of the op-ed’s authors that it fell “outside our coverage priorities right now” the Times has now published a watered-down article on the topic: “Doctors Debate Whether Trans Teens Need Therapy Before Hormones.”
“Clinicians are divided over new guidelines that say teens should undergo mental health screenings before receiving hormones or gender surgeries,” a subheading for the piece reads.
–CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart on Sunday accused the press of “failing” to properly cover President Biden — but not because it’s not hard enough on the Democrat. Instead, the CNN analyst claimed the press is treating Biden “unfairly,” saying there should have been a “dividend for returning truth and decency to the White House,” but instead reporters have “returned to the snarky attitude we saw with Trump and in some respects to Obama.”
He continued: “I said from the very first briefing the Trump spokespeople lied, they lied every day, every briefing and the majority of those briefings were aired on live television. Jen Psaki is in there telling us the truth, she’s telling us what’s going on in the government, what people need to hear, and they’re rarely on live television.”
Lockhart claimed that shows the media is more interested in the business of entertainment than it is about news.