The Confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial

The vicious slander committed by the twittering and journalistic class against innocent young men who were minding their own business while waiting for a bus is appalling. Does anyone actually watch the entire video with all the context of the situation made clear? The Indian elder was the clear and obvious aggressor. He deliberately strode right up to the young men, put himself aggressively in the face of one young man, and started banging a drum and shouting incantations inches from the young man's face. The young man showed admirable maturity of self-restraint in the face of an outrageous provocation. If I had been the young man, I would have punched the Indian elder in the face. What many see as a "smirk" on the young man's face I see as the benign and beatific smile of a good Christian who is keeping his cool in a confusing and threatening situation. The other young men in the group may very well have been sharing in the enthusiasm of the drumming and chanting, not in fact mocking the Indian elder as the Leftist pundit class has chosen to interpret the situation.

I was disappointed in this podcast cause nothing was expanded on how the Native Americans put themselves in the middle. Also the students still mocked and taunted. Just was out right rude. Cafeteria Catholics - Pick and choose when you want to be a good human being.

The vicious slander directed at the Covington boys is appalling. The boys were the innocent victims of acts of public aggression committed by adults. How can anyone who has actually watched all the video footage come to a different conclusion? The boys were minding their own business while waiting for their bus to arrive. First, they were subjected to a stream of obscene verbal abuse by a fringe religious cult. They responded by performing school cheers after receiving permission from their adult chaperones to do so. Then, several First Peoples deliberately and aggressively walked right up to them, got right in their faces, and insulted them, telling them to go back to Europe. The so-called elder (who was later exposed as a liar), deliberately put himself face to face with one specific boy and started banging a drum and shouting incantations into the boy’s face from inches away. That is blatant aggression. The boy displayed admirable composure and self-restraint in the face of outrageous provocation. The boy merely stood there and neither said nor did anything provocative in return. He simply smiled. What Leftist pundits have denounced as a “smirk” was actually the benign and beatific smile of a good Christian keeping his cool in a bizarre and menacing situation.

Imagine instead of teenage boys it was a group of teenage girls. An old guy barges into their midst, banging his drum. A courageous girl silently stands her ground - toe to toe. Now she’s hailed as a young warrior goddess. Disney makes a musical cartoon, adding her to their pantheon of admirable princesses. Mattel sells the dolls. Rashomon!

What is learnt? An arrogant Smirk is a Smirk. White Male Entitlement Rules. The Golden Rule Is Our Bible and He who has Gold Makes The Rules. If Rich, and people see your true self, get a Public Relations Firm. Be an Alpha Male, never, ever Apologize for your Racism. Catholic Schools don't produce Christians.

Understand the attempt to deal with the Student/drummer incident. Bright people attempted to bring out the differing points of view etc. BUT THE REPORT WAS A TOTAL FAILURE. The event was not deconstructed to see if the boys were wrong or not. The fact that some crazy black Isrealities that you would usually see on the corner were ranting all day at everybody has nothing to do with the incident that the nation found upsettling. There were at least five other videos showing them harassing girls, one with most of his clothes off jumping up and down etc. The one responsibility the NYT has to correctly report what happened. Secondly, and more importantly, the report failed to mention that the father hire a Louisville PR firm, reportly RunPro, to spin another story, which they did. And, did the father or the PR firm also get the kid on national television as part of their effort to improve his image-even make him a national hero. The troubled Today Show, battered with scandals of its own for the last year, was the first to accomadate the boy, positioning the boy as a hero rather than addressing the truth or moral issues involved. Certainly hope Gutherie did not think she got a scoop.

Lots of talk about "protecting the flock" but how about the chaperones for those teens? Wouldn't protecting the flock entail reigning them in before they get in a near-riot with the Black Israelites? Seems like they leaned pretty hard on Nathan Phillips for that purpose, then threw him under the bus.

The problem with this hot mess is not the students, not the native Americans, not even the religious sect nor the bystanders. The problem is the proliferation of the abominable iPhone and the willingness of the media to pick up on whatever seems to be going viral and run with it. So-called social media thus quickly takes on an outsize importance and becomes actual media with no intervening effort to verify the facts. Every single person in this video is performing for the camera, as people do these days no matter what the occasion. The performances become the news of the day and are consumed by the multitudes hungry for their daily dose of absurdity. We have become a nation of hysterics. Our hysteria is fed daily by whatever is tweeted or posted and we all become more stupid in the process.

I didn’t get any new insights about this story from The Daily. Sorry. And WHY do you spend most of the episode playing Fox News clips, without identifying them as such?? They’re not a legitimate news source with anything useful to say. This is a complex story but you seem to be defending the Covington students. I’d hoped for better from the NYT

The problem is that, as one feminist puts it, abortion forces women's bodies to perform like men's bodies. So, she argues in the following link, constellations of power aren't as straighforward as this NYT piece would have you believe: http://churchlife.nd.edu/2019/01/11/confessions-of-a-feminist-heretic/

I just listened to your podcast with Freshman Rashida Tlaib. I was disappointed that you didn't further push the Congresswoman on her "authenticity." Her excuse that she is just being herself, unfiltered and authentic, is the same reason given by Trump defenders for his unacceptable behavior. A very missed opportunity. I am a progressive Democrat, but f this freshman class is just going to be a progressive version of Trump you can have them.

I think another important factor to look at is, what the branding of MAGA means. When I see someone with that log on them I automatically fear them. For me as a woman of color, the MAGA=KKK and that alone represents a disturbance in my "flock". It's was not OK for those boys to be in that area wearing that log!

Have you investigated the accounts of adults and former students from or in Covington that describe the toxic, racist culture of the diocese and at the school? Here are a couple: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/01/23/gay-valedictorian-from-catholic-school-in-covington-not-surprised-by-controversy/ https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/1/22/1828373/-Covington-Catholic-It-Could-Have-Been-Me

Quote from your audio report, "The Cov Catholic father used an expletive" .... and "the community felt attacked..." Please report exactly what the supposed "adult" African American 1st amendment right "chanters" said to these teenage boys. In detail: PLEASE spare no words from us listeners-we can take it. And, please add to your narrative what type of clothing and headwear the self-identified Black activists had on. And also, their demeanor towards the boys and any other white people they encountered that day. It's been been reported and video - confirmed that they were pretty disparaging to all. The teen boys were using their 1st amendment right (and probably the only way they knew) to chant school cheers to support "their team," to use a sports metaphor. Think about it -what would you do at 15 in that situation? IMHO, the self-identified "Native American Elder" saw a great opportunity to become nationally known and had no reason to be involved in a nothing issue.

They were a "flock" of 100 men wearing "MAGA" hats, a slogan and symbol of Racism and Misogyny. When is "Great Again" btw? 1963? 1955? 1948? The is White (male) Supremacy protecting itself. These boys were bussed in to take rights away from Women to control their own body. They also weren't "poor kids" from Kentucky. "Nicholas" Sandman hired the 'RunSwitch' PR firm which is a lobbying arm for Republicans. @ElizabethDias, The lesson of Religion here is to pay less attention to another "all-American" boys catholic school narrative that works to protect 'Whiteness.' Instead pay attention to the words of Native Americans and the song that Nathan Phillips chose to sing in that moment. For a much more in depth breakdown you can go to DemocracyNow whom had much better coverage on this situation.

This all reminds me of the original Star Trek episode called "Day of the Dove" in which an alien life form who derives sustenance from negative emotion foments hatred and discord between the Enterprise crew and their erstwhile Klingon enemies. Quotes: Mr. Spock: Recent events would seem to be directed toward a magnification of the basic hostilities between Humans and Klingons. Apparently, it is by design that we fight. We seem to be pawns. Captain James T. Kirk: But what's the game? And whose? And what are the rules? ... Captain James T. Kirk: [to the alien entity] Get off my ship. You're a dead duck here, you're powerless. We know about you, and we don't want to play. Maybe... maybe there're others like you around, maybe you've caused a lot of suffering, a lot of history; but that's all over. We'll be on guard now, we'll be ready for you, so ship out! Come on, haul it! Dr. McCoy: Yeah, out already! Klingon Captain: Out! We need no urging to hate Humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house. Out! So I say, "We need no urging to hate anyone. Out!"

LOL. Mike you are woefully out-of-date. NBC Guthrie has already conducted a whitewash interview of Nick Sandmann and now there is a video on Twitter of a young lady being harassed by the same Covington High School. Sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar." and a jerk is just a jerk. The crazy colonels have lived up to their moniker I was educated in Catholic schools - grade school, high school, and university. I would have known to just turn and walk away. It isn't all that complicated. Don't stand your ground, give ground and live another day.

I'm sorry, but this morning's podcast is unlistenable. I just think professionals in a voice only environment should be able to speak clearly, without vocal fry. It's a really odd trend.

I'm wonder if anyone has looked into the background and affiliation of the videographer of the initial video to see if in fact they created the video intentionally to draw progressives criticism so they could then show full context and make progressives look bad. Supporting this plausibility is that the boy was looking straight ahead and not glancing around because he was a party to the creation of the video and was trying not to look directly at the camera which would reveal the setup.

Excellent reporting. Thank you for your clarity, thoughtfulness and balance.

Why were those kids there anyway? Why are they messaging a political statement while they voting rights are due in the next 4-5 years? Even the whole event was coincidental it sure looks set in a way to create dissent, outrage and anger. The adults who brought these kids there are to blame. This combination of politics, kids and religion made by supervising adults doesn't bring anything good on the table.

Thank you for doing the job as the journalist in this episode, which many others shelved just to gin up sophisticated and impersonal academic analysis of re -framing and identity etc. Lived experience matters in informing this episode. So way to go on the extra mile. And it is also heartening to see a journalist not fall in line with the idea of writing off "trump country" by just not covering it because it offends their personal outlooks. A small piece of journalism like this make journalism all a little bit less maligned like the hypocrites wanting to move to Canada because they did not see Trump coming. Maybe it would be worth reminding journalist to not be lazy and rely on tweets for a news source without investigating things first.

Your comments about the confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial were thoughtful - too thoughtful - trying to make links to Cavanaugh and white priviledge and over-analysis of “protect the flock” blinded you from key points that should be the foundation of the discussion (facts); the Hebrew Israelites we’re aggressive and mean-spirited, Mr Phillips’ behavior was odd and inconsistent, and the high-schoolers were surprisingly well-behaved given the strange situation. The media was wrong, revealing a deep seated problem in the new industry. I believe “The Daily” is usually insightful and fair, but even your commentary seems afraid to make the right call on this one.

As a former teacher and student, I know little is taught about Indians. Students, for the most part, know little or nothing. Talk about discrimination, no race has it worse than Indians. We have broken treaties and continue to steal their lands, some of which are sacred to an individual tribe. When I was an English teacher I set aside time for writings by indians and plenty of discussion. Most students were stunned by the magnitude of their suffering. As a student, in Evansville, Indiana, my teacher was telling the class that the Traial of Tears were a myth. Being from Crittenden County, Kentucky where the Cherokee wintered over at Mantle Rock I took exception to her remarks. I was in the 5th grade. When I stood and called her a liar or very lacking in her history, she sent me to the principal's office. I was punished for disrecpt and told to apologize for talking back, I refused leading to more disciplinary action. That teacher and I had a bad relationship after that and i made bad grades from her during the rest of the year. Americans don't want to know how horribly we treated the natives of this land, how we stole and sickened them on purpose. Trying to get the genocide we wanted for the native people. Some of our founding fathers believed and wanted the complete eradication of the people and their culture. So, I say shame on us for continuing the disrespect and discrimination.

I've viewed most of the video clips I think. I haven't changed my mind since the first very brief one I saw. However, my version has expanded to seeing the Israelites baiting a very willing school of fish, they eagerly taking the bait, a third group seeing the possibility of a really terrible thing happening, and trying to step in to defuse that volatile situation. The monumental failure here rests with the adults who should have had better control of their unsophisticated, poorly socialized, unruly children.

Understand that Covington Catholic was founded in the city of Covington but moved to PARK HILLS about 60 years ago. This is a school with a tuition of over $10,000/year; it's students are primarily White and upper class. Covington itself is a progressive, heterogenous, diverse and welcoming city. Please read the Press Release of the city's mayor, Joe Meyer.

This episode is full of disingenuous obfuscation. Sandman did nothing wrong.

I don't quite understand why a school, a religious school, would have it's students wearing a political hat.??

seems like Trevor jumped the gun with details of the Covington Student, he was bullying the Native American Elder. Facts are facts.