Hugh Hewitt Speaks for the Mainstream Press

The Washington Post should be deeply ashamed of itself for having been bullied into publishing the screeds of the notorious right wing liar Hugh Hewitt under any circumstances, and never more so with Hewitt's comments today on the racist terrorist murder in Charlottesville yesterday:

"The Charlottesville driver isn’t the only one who should lawyer up...

The Commonwealth of Virginia is, of course, governed by Brandenburg and also has a felony homicide statute that provides that the “killing of one accidentally, contrary to the intention of the parties, while in the prosecution of some felonious act...is murder of the second degree and is punishable by confinement in a state correctional facility for not less than five years nor more than forty years.”

it seems to me that a great number of people are at risk of being charged with felony homicide beyond the driver of the car that killed one person during Saturday’s protests. Anyone who incited the driver, indeed anyone whose actions obliged the state troopers to be airborne in defense of the public’s safety, should lawyer up... Lots of people should be charged if they contributed to the mayhem that led to these deaths."

Notice particularly that Hewitt is extremely careful to never point out exactly who "incited the driver," or exactly who "anyone whose actions obliged the state troopers to be airborne in defense of the public’s safety."

This is no more an accident that Donald Trump's clear claim that the victims of this terrorist act were as equally to blame as the terrorist himself.  It openly implies that everyone who showed up in Charlottesville was equally to blame for the terrorism as the terrorist and his associates themselves.  It is a claim that those who fight hatred are as fully deplorable as the haters themselves.  It is of a piece with Republicans' claims that Obama was responsible for their own racism, because he couldn't convince them to give it up.  It is hatred blended with irrationality in a measure so massive that it has, at least so far, proven impervious to any appeal to decency.  That is why, in the end, I see no answer to this other than forcibly putting these people down, like the mad dogs they are.

Comments

Flying Junior said…
I'm not sure what would be the point of James Fields getting a lawyer at all.

I would think his best course of action would simply be to confess, plead guilty and perhaps plead for his life.

It looks like an open and shut death penalty case to me. I am not familiar with terrorism statutes in Virginia.

But when a young guy fucks up in a major way, usually the only reason to engage an attorney is to plead to the court that he is basically a good guy who just made a terrible mistake.

That doesn't include terrorism.

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