A sucker is born every minute

The Werkes continues to marvel how my old boss at The Capital Times, editor emeritus Dave Zweifel, could have grown up on the farm (outside New Glarus WI) and gone so wrong.

Dave still follows the progressive line long after the La Follettes left the parade grounds. He now marches in step with A.O.C., over statues toppled by BLM to the blaring beat of bullhorns blown by that guy with a baseball bat. 

“Indeed, the violence and vandalism that night [06-23/24-2020) was outrageous …” Mr. Zweifel allows before quickly moving on. That subordinate clause is the only evidence of his disapproval to date before quickly pivoting to the true malefactors:

 

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No, not Yeshua or Sire Gq but (wait for it!) Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature! (Indeed, his column is disfigured by another Konopacki cartoon, this one depicting various Republicans smashing a store labeled “Obamacare.” The message as subtle as breaking glass: who can blame the rioters when there are … Republicans fighting more free stuff!)

Republicans like Sen. Howard Marklein of Spring Green, one of the most decent people in political life. His sin and theirs: expressing outrage at the wanton destruction in downtown Madison — “but nary a word about the white guys who threw lighter fluid in the face of a Black young woman stopped at a traffic light and set her afire.”

That nary a word, Mr. Zweifel, may be owed to the fact that Sen. Marklein and his colleagues have what once was known as a newsman’s nose for farmyard bovine excreta. We broached the subject, with trepidation, in “Probe into possible hate crime enters second week.”

‘Classic Wisconsin frat boys!’

We noted that within days of the fire bombing of the City County Building, authorities were up with still photos. No such photos exist of Ms. Althea Bernstein’s immolation, even though she alleged that it occurred at the corner of State and Gorham Streets. Even though all of downtown is on camera 24/7. Four “classic Wisconsin frat boys” walking up State Street from a deserted campus with a bottle of charcoal lighter fluid. At the same hour and only a few blocks away from the fire bombing of the CCB. With charcoal lighter fluid.

After the BLM martyr whose arrest occasioned the protest (that being Devonere Johnson) was accused of extorting businesses for money and beer, the movement was in need of a fresh martyr. Enter, Althea! Frat boys throw a lit lighter into her car; unless it was an old-fashioned Zippo, the butane lighters of today don’t stay lit. Just does not add up.

No, after Jussie Smollett, some of us have learned to hold our fire until the facts are in. Or, for that matter, after Michael Brown (“Hands up, don’t shoot”) was found to be an urban myth. The sad thing is that progressives would rather believe the myth if it alleges the worst about America. Because the classic white frat boys will never be found, Zweifel et al can go on believing the unbelievable.

The daily hoax

Dennis Prager is one of the esssentials. He asks, at Real Clear Politics, “If America is so racist, why are there so many race hoaxes?”

Juice-eee-A Smollett, The Nascar “noose,” the Duke lacrosse team, the slander at Oberlin College of Gibson’s Bakery, the “UW 4 Whites Only” sign nine months ago. (More here.) The 2012 “death list” at UW-Parkside. (More here.) Al Sharpton’s original Tawana Brawley hoax. 

It’s almost a weekly occurance. On 07-08-2020, a candidate for county commissioner in Oregon admitted to police that he wrote a racist letter to himself that he had claimed was left in his mailbox, the East Oregonian reported.

Police officers at Texas A&M University announced this week that an alleged racial hate crime was actually a hoax perpetrated by the crime’s supposed victim. Isaih (sic) Martin, a senior at the university, told police in June that he found racist notes on the hood of his car. (Story here.)

The last word goes to Mr. Prager: If there were a lot of racism, there would be no need for hoaxes. No Jew in Germany in the 1930s made up an anti-Semitic hoax. No Jewish shop owner ever made up a charge that a Nazi hurled a rock through his store window. The reason? None was needed. Nazi hatred against Jews was real. It didn’t have to be faked.

To convince people that America is racist, you have to fake it.

Can you believe it!