Tea at Trianon: The Mainstream Media Begin to Panic about January 6

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 2, 2023

The Mainstream Media Begin to Panic about January 6

From American Thinker:

Practically within minutes of January 6, the Democrat establishment, both politicians and the media, had their narrative in place: It was a violent insurrection that justified the biggest FBI manhunt in history, saw Democrats conduct a kangaroo congressional hearing to cement the narrative, deprived hundreds of people of their constitutional rights, and cowed Biden’s opponents into silence lest they too be accused of “insurrection.” For those same two years, the Democrat establishment resisted making public 14,000 hours of video footage showing J6 events in and around the Capitol, claiming that to do so was too dangerous. Now, though, with Kevin McCarthy having made the footage exclusively available to Tucker Carlson, the media are singing a very different tune.

One of the sure things about Democrats is that they firmly believe that, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…. With consistency a great soul simply has nothing to do.” Or, put another way, when you’re a narcissist, the one consistent point when it comes to “truth” and “narrative” is that both must always serve your needs. (I’ve never had a high opinion of Emerson, and I have a very low opinion of Democrats.) Nothing shows that more clearly than the “turn on a dime” response in the media regarding the 14,000 hours of video.

For the past two years, the media have insisted that the 14,000 hours of video footage are irrelevant and that making the footage public would permanently endanger those who work (and posture) in the Capitol. Even more disgracefully, the DOJ has had the same attitude, refusing to make exculpatory footage available to J6 defendants and doing so selectively only when the courts applied force.

However, when it comes to footage that advances the narrative, the DOJ and the media have been thrilled to squeeze out a little here and there. A few months after events on January 6, the media became positively orgasmic when the DOJ released small, carefully curated snippets intended to show that a group of unarmed people, mostly elderly, waving flags and taking pictures, was about to take down the entire American government. (Read more.)