The parents of red hat student Nicholas "Smirk" Sandmann are going after the Washington Post for its coverage of the confrontation between their son and Native American activist Nathan Phillips near the Lincoln Memorial after an anti- abortion rally on January 19. They've filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, and it seems their motives are perfectly noble and non- political, just like precious little Smirk's behavior:
The suit alleges that The Post “targeted and bullied” 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann in order to embarrass President Trump. Sandmann was one of a number of students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky who were wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats during a trip to the Mall when they encountered Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist. [snip]
“In a span of three days in January of this year commencing on January 19, the Post engaged in a modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child,” reads the complaint.
It added, “The Post ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President.” (our emphasis)To add an exclamation point to their purely non- political, non- racist intentions, the Sandmanns' suit
... calls Phillips “a phony war hero [who] was too intimidated by the unruly Hebrew Israelites to approach them, the true troublemakers, and instead chose to focus on a group of innocent children.” (our emphasis)"Innocent children." Oh, the humanity!
Phillips, who served four years in the Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War era, has never claimed to be a "war hero," though there's been some confusion about whether he ever claimed to be deployed to Vietnam. However, let's contrast that service to the Sandmann family's hero, 5- deferment Cadet Bone Spurs himself, Donald "Rump" Trump:
In a 1997 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Trump talked about how he had been “lucky” not to have contracted diseases when he was sleeping around.
“I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era,” Trump said in a video that resurfaced Tuesday on Buzzfeed, “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”A wingnut site we won't link to claims the Sandmanns also will be suing Phillips over "lies." How very Catholic of them. We wonder what the life- lovin' Sandmanns' reaction would be if it turns out their hero, Cadet Bone Spurs, paid for multiple abortions over the years, something Michael Cohen might enlighten us on eventually (spoiler alert: they'd call it "fake news").
Unless the Sandmanns have very deep pockets, it would seem certain their noble, non- political lawsuit is being underwritten by the same gullible yahoos who underwrite most of these "conservatives are the real victims" actions. All the more reason to hope the Post prevails.
(Photo: Social media/ Reuters)
