Frankovich’s “apology” and the Atlantic’s attempt at a corrective on the nature of truth
Nicholas Frankovich wrote a scathing piece in National Review on the Covington teenagers entitled “The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross.” I mentioned it in an earlier post, noting that I’d read his article when it first came out but by the time I got around to writing about it, the piece had fallen not-so-mysteriously down the “not found” memory hole.
But I see that Ace has thoughtfully pried it from the Wayback Machine, so if you’re inclined to take a look you can.
Frankovich has finally issued something he calls “An Apology.” Here’s the entire text:
Early Sunday morning, I posted a “strongly worded” (Rich Lowry’s description) condemnation of the conduct, seen far and wide on video, of a group of high-school students at the conclusion of the March for Life on Friday afternoon. I was preachy and rhetorically excessive, and I regret it. The overheated post I wrote has been taken down. Let this apology stand in its stead, both here on the Corner and in the memory of readers who justifiably objected to my high-handedness.
Theoretically, an apology is a good thing. But this is not an apology. Rather, it’s a pretend apology, a fake apology, and in my opinion it’s actually worse than no apology at all.
Here’s a little sample of Frankovich’s original “rhetorical excess”:
It appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. “Bullying” is a worn-out word and doesn’t convey the full extent of the evil on display here…
I don’t know how Phillips would describe his religious affiliation. He speaks of indigenous traditions. Some people who observe them integrate them with Christianity, but some don’t. In any case, keeping in mind the parable of the proper priests and the Good Samaritan, whose religious practice Jesus’s listeners thought was wrong, listen to Phillips reflect on his experience on the Mall. Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.
Frankovich wrote all of this and more based on a very short video devoid of context, plus the word of Phillips, who was lying through his teeth in describing the incident. Frankovich’s errors were not merely rhetorical; they went to the heart of the matter: he got almost every single thing about the encounter wrong.
So just say it, man: “I was wrong. I relied on false reports. I didn’t use good judgment. I rushed to a conclusion on the basis of completely inadequate information—and in addition my rhetoric was rhetorically excessive, overheated, cruel, and uncalled for and I regret it. It was especially wrong to do this to teenage children, who are particularly vulnerable.”
Now, would that be that so hard?
Apparently way too hard. That “apology” from Frankovich is worse than nothing. No apology would at least have been sincere; this reeks of insincerity. If he wants to get credit for an apology then he should issue a real one that addresses what he did wrong, not a pretend one. Titling something “an apology” doesn’t make it so.
Now let’s take a look at how the Atlantic is dealing with the Covington incident at the moment. The title of the piece is promising: “Stop Trusting Viral Videos.” The subtitle? Not so great: “A controversial video of Catholic students clashing with American Indians appeared to tell a simple truth. A second video called that story into question. But neither shows what truly happened.”
Now, it’s technically true that “neither shows what truly happened.” No video, no article, no account even with all parties thoroughly vetted and interviewed for many hours and days, can show “what truly happened.” But that goes without saying and is a weaselly evasion. Even though no reporting and no video can show the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that doesn’t mean that a video that’s nearly two hours long doesn’t ordinarily (and almost always) tell far more truth about an incident than one that’s a few seconds long.
Note also the way that subtitle is written: “A controversial video of Catholic students clashing with American Indians” is their description of the original short video that went viral. But no, it didn’t show the students clashing with American Indians at all. It showed an encounter in which the students were clapping and/or smiling and basically not doing much. So even this language is misleading.
Nor did the second video merely “call that story into question.” It demolished it.
And that’s just the subtitle.
The rest of the article is a meditation on the fact that, through clever editing, videos can be made to tell whatever story the editor desires. Sure, particularly if the segments shown are very short. But it doesn’t mean the longer video doesn’t tell us much much more and doesn’t actually come very close to “the truth”—at least, as much truth as we’ll ever get about the incident.
The author, Ian Bogost, goes on and on about the longer video and various moments and insults in it and how the video might be edited to tell a different story, without ever acknowledging that the Black Israelites are the ones hurling insult after insult and the white teenagers are guilty of nothing other than existing (save, perhaps, a tomahawk chop or two from a random boy—a chop which originally, by the way, was a sports gesture that meant support of teams named after Native Americans, not insults—and a smile).
Bogost doesn’t acknowledge a lot of other things, such as the fact that the teenaged student Sandmann’s narrative about the incident fits the evidence in the long video far better than does the tale told by Nathan Phillips, whose story clashes with just about all the evidence on it. That we can’t know the entire truth from the perspective of an omniscient narrator doesn’t mean we can’t come to conclusions that are mostly true. And we should endeavor to do that.
[NOTE: Regarding the National Review and its editorial decisions—I have no idea whether this report is true, but it says:
According to a source inside of #NeverTrump stalwart National Review, who spoke to Big League Politics on the condition of anonymity, the magazine is in turmoil after publishing a now-deleted piece [by Frankovich] bashing the Covington Catholic High School students.
Deputy managing editor Nicholas Frankovich penned a piece called “The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross,” which was published at 3 a.m. on Sunday.
“The guy who posted that did it at 3am without running it by anyone,” an employee familiar with the situation told Big League Politics.
The source said that editor Rich Lowry is “deeply chagrined” by incident.
I have little doubt that Lowry is “deeply chagrined” by the reaction to the piece, plus subsequent events. And it’s possible that Frankovich’s piece really did get published without Lowry’s approval. That possibility kind of fits the facts, which are that Lowry took the piece down at least a day before the Frankovich “apology” appeared, and Lowry had issued his own rather tepid apology at least a day prior to Frankovich’s. Some sort of arm-twisting by Lowry may have gone on before Frankovich came through with his “oh, I just used some too-strong wording” statement.
Another issue for NR might be a legal one. Does confessing wrongdoing or carelessness or regret matter in the legal sense? Is it an admission of guilt that would factor into a lawsuit and reflect negatively on the confessor? If so, lawyers may have advised strongly against it. And you better believe that lawyers have been involved by now.]
[ADDENDUM: Here’s an apology that seems sincere. It passes muster, and I think the author may even have learned something to guide her in the future. However, it’s by a “writer based in Cincinnati” who is not a journalist (at least so far as I can tell).]
[ADDENDUM II: Ace lets Frankovich and NR have it. And they deserve it.]
Also from Ace of Spades HQ, posted today @11:48 under the headline: “Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson Have Had It With the Cucks”:
The latest disgrace at NRO should be sufficient cause for any rational conservative to consign it to the dustbin of history. Several excellent writers have been defenestrated over the last several years by the spineless pseudo-conservatives/establishment hacks who run what was, once upon a time, a worthy magazine; with the exception of VDH, who usually posts at AmericanGreatness and Andrew McCarthy, almost everyone on the website is brain-dead from TDS.
Yikes, that Frankovich post was bad. He gave his non-apology to readers, when he should have been apologizing to the kids for calling them evil, etc..
This gets to the root of why people are so upset by this: these so-called media professionals unleashed their rage on kids without even pausing to consider whether or not it was true. They were guilty because they’re white boys (toxic masculinity, white privilege!) wearing MAGA hats (Nazi Trumpsters!) having the audacity to smirk! No apology can erase the realization that Frankovich and the rest of the media would do it to my kid should he have the misfortune of being targeted by activists on social media, too.
A lot of masks slipped off this past weekend.
“So just say it, man: “I was wrong.
[snip]
Now, would that be that so hard?” [Neo]
Yes it would be, and it is. They are the three most difficult words in the English language.
I think if someone constantly jumps on a bandwagon criticizing conservatives, indeed, that’s a sign that he’s not really a conservative.
But I think peer pressure and the desire to fit in is something humans never really outgrow and it’s at play here. You hear everyone else calling someone racist, so you want to call them racist, too.
If nothing else this entire Covington affair puts Andrew Breitbart’s declaration of war on Progressivism front and center:
The link:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/5/andrew-breitbarts-iconic-war-cry-finds-context-tru/
Remember when McCain suspended his presidential campaign because of the financial crisis? At that moment, you knew in your bones that he was toast. I feel the same way about NR. They have passed by their tipping point. They are done.
with the exception of VDH, who usually posts at AmericanGreatness and Andrew McCarthy, almost everyone on the website is brain-dead from TDS.
I don’t think that’s a fair description of the writing of MB Dougherty or Charles Cooke. (Cooke, like McCarthy, is a Trump critic). The troublesome characters there are David French, Jonah Goldberg, Kevin Williamson, and Jason Lee Steorts.
The quotation Mr. T supplies identifies the problem quite precisely, and that is that these people make a living off a constituency they actually despise. They’re not keeping anyone honest in what they’re writing. They’re just revealing their biases.
They have passed by their tipping point. They are done.
You think it’s their Ratner moment?
https://www.businessblogshub.com/2012/09/the-man-who-destroyed-his-multi-million-dollar-company-in-10-seconds/
Fun fact: John Derbyshire’s brother once worked for Gerald Ratner. Lost his job as the company imploded.
Art Deco,
Would that be Charles C.W. Cooke as opposed to Charlie Cooke the election guru?
Also thanks for the assignation, but I pity the fool who calls me “Mr.” T. (I say, thas a joke, son.)
I agree with Patricia. National Review is as done as a late afternoon Thanksgiving turkey. It’s over for them.
Overall, I like Charles Cooke; he’s thoughtful and doesn’t make snap judgments. I do think his beef with Trump is sincere and not a desire to be one of the “cool kids.”
There are really no writers at the National Review today who come close to the intellectual stature or prose style of Buckley, Whitaker Chambers, James Burnham, or any of the many others who wrote for the magazine in its heyday.
I can’t even call the current crew epigoni, as that suggests some connection with the originals.
And, with its NeverTrumpism, it has simply become irrelevant to the serious discussion of how to implement conservative ideas. It’s a Friday turd at a Saturday market.
I’d be surprised if it survives past 2020.
Michael Towns:
I, for one, hope that National Review successfully reinvents itself, keeping the writers who are good such as VDH and McCarthy. There are a few others who are okay. Thing is, the periodicals on the right are all dead or dying. WS, gone. Commentary seems moribund. The only things left are what? The WSJ, sort of, and the NY Post, mostly. And some blogs? The Federalist? That’s also just online.
Of course, maybe the future is that it will all be online.
National Review must represent what its donors want. It is apparent that they want what voters, at least right leaning voters do not.
Neo,
I would add City Journal to your list, although to my knowledge it, too is only online.
Would that be Charles C.W. Cooke as opposed to Charlie Cooke the election guru?
Aye. I think the election analyst has penned commentary for NR, though I might be confusing him with Michael Barone.
City Journal certainly had a print edition. Have they discontinued it?
There’s also The Claremont Review and the serial publications produced by ISI Press. These are academic publications, though.
The American Spectator continues to be published.
T:
Agreed. And I’m pretty sure that City Journal still has a print addition.
But it’s pretty obscure compared to NR, isn’t it?
It seems the problem with NR is that the folks in charge hold their allegiance to the District of Columbia. They have been subrogated to the interests of DC power elites. They are the milquetoast champagne class of “conservatives.”
Why don’t we start our own conservative publication? 😉
The comment that NR probably is being advised by lawyers is accurate, I think. But it would be far more sensible, and the right thing to do, to punish the deputy managing editor in some highly visible way and candidly admit the error. It would be sensible, that is, if the magazine is interested in retaining its conservative readership.
Neo,
I agree, compared to NR and the deceased Weekly Standard it is much less known. That is a shame really, because I have found insightful and profound articles there; IMO it’s worthy of much greater recognition which is why I singled it out. I did not know about its print edition since I’ve only encountered it online.
Art Deco,
Yes, Claremont Review, too.
It seems the problem with NR is that the folks in charge hold their allegiance to the District of Columbia.
1. I’m pretty sure its HQ remains in New York. They once had a DC office run by a woman named O’Beirne. Not sure if they still do. Mrs. O’Beirne has since died.
2. Much of their content is generated by people telecommuting, something that appears to be true of staff editors as well as contributors. Jonah Goldberg lives in DC. Charles C.W. Cooke now lives in Jacksonville. Their late culture correspondent (a Mr. Potemra) spent his last years in Los Angeles. WhitePages searches on Jason Lee Steorts place him in Salt Lake City.
City Journal covers the same sort of territory that Policy Review and The Public Interest once did. The Hudson Review was at one time a publication of the same sort; not sure if they’re still published.
Not sure if Human Events is still published. It was much scruffier than the others.
National Review, The American Spectator, Commentary and The Weekly Standard were the staples of the conventional right 20 years ago. Commentary had a significantly different format from the others and specialized in long-form essays (though it had reviews as well); it was also published less frequently (10x a year, IIRC). Magazines of all sorts have been having a terrible time of it. The Weekly Standard hastened it’s own demise. In re Commentary, the smart money says it folds the day after John Podhoretz is eligible for Medicare.
“And that’s just the subtitle.” – Neo
Excellent.
I saw the Atlantic article linked on the “Don’t wear Maga hat” post and said that the author is employing the same schemata that the Left “fact checkers” use in order to give Four Pinocchios to some statement that they actually admit is true, but weasel around it with framing, and intent, and other opinion judgements.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/01/21/dont-wear-your-maga-hats-out-in-public/#comment-2420105
(includes a few more takedowns of the body of the Atlantic post)
I haven’t been this angry since the dive-bombing of Justice Kavanaugh, and that was just a few months ago.
Lizzy on January 22, 2019 at 2:08 pm at 2:08 pm said:
A lot of masks slipped off this past weekend.
* * *
Most of them were not on very securely to begin with.
shadow on January 22, 2019 at 2:21 pm at 2:21 pm said:
I think if someone constantly jumps on a bandwagon criticizing conservatives, indeed, that’s a sign that he’s not really a conservative.
But I think peer pressure and the desire to fit in is something humans never really outgrow and it’s at play here. You hear everyone else calling someone racist, so you want to call them racist, too.
* * *
If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?
Or as Sir Thomas More put it to the Duke of Norfolk in the play:
DUKE: Oh, confound all this! I’m not a scholar. I don’t know if the marriage was lawful or not… but damn it, Thomas, look at these names. Why can’t you do as I did and come with us for fellowship?
MORE: And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience… and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?
https://www.shmoop.com/a-man-for-all-seasons/principles-quotes.html
All they had to do was wait, not even a full day it seems, for the longer videos to come out, even if they have the Atlantic’s tolerance for weaseling.
It started on Friday, and everything was over before I even heard of the story Sunday night!
T – Ace only made one mistake (and he has several rants about the Covington train-wreck besides the one you linked):
“1, you’re not that smart, certainly not as smart as you boast to people on twitter, or else you wouldn’t keep (allegedly) getting chumped and rolled by the left every
otherweek.”https://bigleaguepolitics.com/native-activist-who-harassed-catholic-teens-identified-as-actor-from-2012-skrillex-video-about-attacking-police/
“Nathan Phillips, the Native American radical activist who confronted the MAGA hat-wearing Catholic teens at the March For Life, starred in a 2012 Skrillex video called “Make It Bun Dem,” in which Phillips does some spiritual warfare connected to a violent attack on a police officer. Phillips was identified as the star of the video in his speaker bio for Tribal Hemp & Cannabis Education and discussed the role in a 2017 interview.
…
The point is this: Phillips is not simply a random Native man who was accosted by “racist” MAGA-hat wearing teens, as the mainstream press has reported. He is connected to leftist activists who donate large sums to leftist causes. And now, he is personally fundraising off the mainstream press’ misdeeds.
Given that the full, unedited video of the interaction between Phillips and the students shows that Phillips clearly approached the students, and given that he is connected to left-wing social justice causes, one could conclude that he targeted the teenagers for their support of President Donald J. Trump. Yet the mainstream press narrative is exactly the opposite – that the boys targeted Phillips.”
More from T’s link to the Andrew Breitbart story (how greatly he is missed!):
“To fight back in this war you need to use asymmetric tactics. You need to throw everything you have every day and be ready for the next battle as soon as the last one has been fought because they’ll just keep coming. And the real target in this war is the will and spirit of the American people.
The media and the elites in our culture are trying to convince those who think a different way not to change their minds but to stay quiet and in the shadows. They don’t care if you agree they just want you to shut up and stand aside. Breitbart wouldn’t have it. He fought back. It was war. And Trump continues that fight. ”
* * *
I do think they want us to agree, if we can be persuaded, but they don’t care if we just lie about it, so long as we stand aside.
Kinda like the Communists and Nazis that way.
Ace again:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/379324.php
January 22, 2019
“Surprise: Nathan Philips, Allegedly a “Marine Recon Ranger” (Because That’s a Thing That Really Exists), Seems to Have a History of Confronting White Students and Then Claiming He Was Racially Assaulted
You know, Nick Monroe, a “freelance journalist,” found this, it seems, with just a google search.
But National Review, which conservatives give their money to, couldn’t find it, or more likely didn’t even bother searching for this guy’s name to get his background.
Because they’re Real Journalists. Real like their very good friends at BuzzFeed and MSNBC.
Nicholas Frankovich wrote a testimonial to this elegant elder and Vietnam (ERA) veteran — and yet he didn’t bother to do any research on this guy before condemning innocent schoolboys as akin to the Romans crucifying Christ.
Maybe National Review just needs more donation money so they can subscribe to Lexis/Nexis. Maybe they just need more of your money to top letting themselves be used as willing pawns of the left every couple of weeks.”
* * *
[Every week, Ace; every week.]
* * *
But National Review didn’t care enough to run this guy’s background before condemning these kids and exposing them to leftist violence and harassment.
In related news, Rich Lowry, Jonah Goldberg, and Nicholas Frankovich have announced a five-part series called “The Righteous Wanderings of Nathan Phillips,” which will explore this Marine Recon Ranger’s career as a poet, a Teacher, a Fighter of Evil, and the Living Embodiment of The Christ Himself.
“Donate to the National Review
If you send us more money maybe we’ll stop scalp-hunting your children.
Maybe.
Depends on how much money you send.”
to my knowledge it, too is only online.
I have subscribed to City Journal and Claremont Review for years. I think both are quarterly, though.
Driving today, I heard Sean Hannity talking to a radio guy in Kentucky, Covington or Cincinnati. He said the chaperones told him the MAGA hats were given away to the kids.They DID NOT BUY THEM! This sounds more and more like a planned hit job.
It reminds me of the video I saw of a guy (unidentified) paying the demonstrators who disrupted the Kavanaugh hearings. The video was done by two guys (doctors I think) who were standing in line waiting to get into the hearing. The demonstrators were the identical ones who were thrown out of the hearings.
This thing is so similar to Kavanaugh in the furor and mistakes made but the difference for the right is he was one of their elite brethren while these kids are deplorables so NR types were aghast at that.
We now know where Ace stands on the question of how to define and practice forgiveness.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/379325.php
“January 22, 2019
LOL: No One’s Accepting National Review’s Newest Partial Apology So They Decide to Forgive Themselves Instead
…
He still has not apologized to the children he defamed. In fact — I don’t know this to be true, so I’ll ask if it’s true. People are saying in your own comments areas, National Review, that all through Sunday, Nicholas Frankovich continued doubling down on his condemnation if these schoolchildren, even as the facts proved, conclusively, that his slander was, well, slanderous.
Is that true? “IF TRUE,” as you and leftwing friends like to say, it would explain why he pointedly refused to apologize for and retract the factual allegations he had stated and/or insinuated, and only begrudgingly, tersely, apologized to readers (not the parties actually defamed, but readers of the magazine) for a “preachy,” “high-handed” tone.
So is that true? Is he continuing to double-down on his original slander? Was his non-apology forced by Lowry or Fowler? If so, why did you permit him that very obvious Clintonesque evasion? Why did you permit him to not apologize in an alleged “Apology” post?
Who are you hoping to fool? I know you think conservatives are idiots and easily conned — your continued existence does in fact suggest that this belief might be at least partially well-founded — but do you think we’re that stupid to accept an OBVIOUS non-apology as an earnest apology?
Frankovich seeks forgiveness for his tone? Fair enough; I’m forgiving. I forgive him for his tone.
But he did not seek forgiveness for slandering children due to his vicious bigotry against any conservative who dares to wear a MAGA hat at a political rally (those little MONSTERS!), so I won’t be forgiving him for that.
You don’t get forgiven for things you haven’t apologized for. Many of you make great pains to instruct us about how piously Christian you are (pardon me for doubting your Christianity, as Frankovich doubted the Christianity of the Registered Hat Offenders; lot of this going around).
So I’m sure you know that one can only forgive for what is actually confessed.
No one can or should forgive Frankovich — or Lowry, for that matter — for things they haven’t actually confessed to.
…
Is Frankovich apologizing? And are the students innocent? You say they didn’t need you piling on, but guilty people also don’t need people piling on.
Can we be forgiven for continuing to see an awful lot of hedging in your “apologies”?
…
It’s very familiar, indeed. And yet Lowry and Frankovich fell for it. Again. Will they be explaining at any point why they are so prone to joining leftwing SJW lynch mobs, even though they concede this tactic is very “familiar” and therefore they really ought to have some innoculation against being infected by it in now the eighth year running of vicious leftwing social media lynch mobs?
Why do they continue falling for it?
Will they admit — and ask for forgiveness, I suppose — that they are so rabidly anti-Trump that the sight of a MAGA hat causes them to think very unreasoning, bigoted thoughts and assume that people are racist and deserving of scalp-hunting?
Or is that another thing they want to be forgiven for, without actually confessing?”
RTWT; Ace is frothing-at-the-mouth angry at the Conservative Media as much (or more) than the Leftist Agitators, and he ain’t being very nice to them.
Update from one of Ace’s commenters to that last post, FWIW.
41 Washington Post trying to fix Phillips’ story
“Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam.”
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor
Mike K on January 22, 2019 at 4:42 pm at 4:42 pm said:
to my knowledge it, too is only online.
I have subscribed to City Journal and Claremont Review for years. I think both are quarterly, though.
Driving today, I heard Sean Hannity talking to a radio guy in Kentucky, Covington or Cincinnati. He said the chaperones told him the MAGA hats were given away to the kids.They DID NOT BUY THEM! This sounds more and more like a planned hit job.
* * *
I almost hope this isn’t true.
If it is, then it’s time for all of to join Ace and hoist a black flag, or at least a red MAGA one.
However, following the now-vindicated 24-hour delay rule, we’ll have to wait and see.
Aesop Fan,
I read all Ace’s posts prior to my own citation above. He is really on a tear* today, and I don’t blame him one bit.
*(that’s tear as rend not tear as in weep)
“But I think peer pressure and the desire to fit in is something humans never really outgrow and it’s at play here. You hear everyone else calling someone racist, so you want to call them racist, too.”
Not really, no. I haven’t the remotest interest in piling in with knee-jerk outrage and unjust, baseless calls for violence. What I want to do is to step up and intervene, just as I once had the strength to intervene between bully and victim as a teen. The fact that seemingly everyone around me is screaming for blood over nothing – over something that wouldn’t be worth blood even if it were true – makes me look away and feel weak and cowardly for not having the strength to be the voice that says “No!”
I have a family to take care of; and my inevitable destruction for being that voice, just for one moment, accomplishes nothing but putting my family in hardship. Now we know how so many ordinary Germans felt in the early to mid 1930s.
I feel proud that I excluded National Review from my daily reading list 6 years ago after they purged John Derbyshire with explanation for that reeking sheer hypocrisy. I hate such dishonesty in journalism being fed propaganda lies for 4 decades in Soviet Union. To see something like this in allegedly conservative blog in a free country is more than I can tolerate.
National Review has an editorial up now on “The Covington Affair” — this part touches on Frankovich:
This staged hit job is like Reichstag Fire provocation. The war is declared. Now begin to fight back seriously. This is another Flight 93 moment. Be resolute and merciless. The stakes are actually bigger than anybody can imagine.
I so DO hope they’re sued.
I do hope they’re sued.
I do hope they’re sued.
… and the abused teens winning would be even better.
It’s NOT a real apology by a news person who hasn’t resigned.
Ann:
The post I linked to (in ADDENDUM II) by Ace deals with that non-apology quite nicely.
Well worth reading.
Kyndyll:
I have never felt the need to join the club in that way, not since I was about 7 years old.
It has cost me some. I’m not holding myself out to be brave, however, in terms of risking life or limb. But I have risked social ties and I have lost quite a few.
I also spoke up when I was in grad school, and even when my fellow classmates would come up to me privately and support my point of view but were afraid to stand up in public because it might hurt their grades or their recommendations.
It never hurt either my grades or recommendations, as it turns out. But I had the freedom not to really care all that much about either by that time.
Apologies don’t cut it here. They are never sufficient when actual harm has been caused. They better figure out some awfully good reparations & tell us their new procedures to ensure that such “errors” don’t recur.
National Review’s editors & publisher are responsible for their published content, so they should stop trying to weasel out of it – that’s just chickens**t & should be a firing offense.
There’s a reason why NR is circling the drain & will soon join The Weekly Standard in the dumpster, unless they quickly get their act together. Unlike the Left, we will hold our publications accountable.
Neo: I am controlled by two conflicting instincts: to defend what is right, and to take care of those who depend on me. This internal conflict is further balanced by reality: I actually can take care of my family but there isn’t squat I can do to save the world. So there is where I stand. This nation is infested with a horde of zombies that cannot be reasoned with, that will happily destroy any person in their path, and I have no desire to see my family ruined for no purpose other than for me, in my hubris and arrogance, to make a useless, one-minute stand for what is right. Should the time come when no one needs me anymore, or if there is no outcome in which my household can remain secure, I am not averse to choosing a hill to die on, most especially if I can find a hill that matters.
NR is not the only ones refusing to proffer a real apology.
https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/01/22/catholic-leaders-refuse-to-retract-slander-of-school-boys-at-march-for-life/
“Without apologizing to the boys for its rash accusation, the Baltimore Archdiocese released a statement to “clarify” its earlier declaration, acknowledging that “the circumstances of this confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial are now being reported as more complex and it will be the responsibility of school authorities, parents and others involved to determine the actual circumstances, responsibility and consequences.”
For his part, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Saint Louis said he joined “in condemning the actions of the Covington Catholic students towards Mr. Nathan Phillips and the Native American Community yesterday in Washington.”
Despite the abundant new evidence exonerating the students from wrongdoing, as of this writing Archbishop Kurtz has not apologized for slandering the boys and his original statement is still on his website.”
What happened to all those Christian virtues they were selling earlier this week, when they thought it was the boys who were lacking?
Interesting comments from Don Surber, encountered via other posts on the Covington Crisis.
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-caught-blame-trump.html
“Then there is National Review’s apology. Titled, “The Covington Affair,” the 561-word piece said in Paragraph Four, “In this business, all we can do is own up to mistakes when they happen. We apologize to our readers and especially to the Covington students, who didn’t need us piling on.”
The magazine didn’t need to be saying a word about the kids who were in Washington to protest abortion, something the magazine claims to oppose.
The magazine indulged in the very same virtue signaling it denounced liberals for.
National Review blamed its rush on judgment on its push to rush to judgment.
The publication said, “A word on the Nick Frankovich Corner post. As longtime readers know, the Corner is our group blog that encourages real-time, unfiltered reactions by our individual writers (it was basically Twitter before the advent of Twitter). There is always a peril in that. Occasionally, we’ll get something hastily and spectacularly wrong. Nick was operating off the best version of events he had on Saturday night, and writing as a faithful Catholic and pro-lifer who has the highest expectations of his compatriots, not as a social-justice activist. As soon as better evidence emerged, we deleted the post.”
Why is it running real-time, unfiltered reactions by its individual writers?
A magazine that fancies itself as intellectual conservatism should be more reflective and cautious.
Being Twitter before there was a Twitter should inform its editors that the Corner is a bad idea.
The way to stop the rush to judgment is to stop rushing to judgment.
But in a clickbait world, it is better to ruin the life of a minor and apologize than it is to act like an adult. The Corner generates too much traffic to quit.
Question: Why was Frankovich posting at 2:55 AM?
Nothing good ever comes at that time of day except the birth of a baby.”