The jury has spoken! After sitting through the entire trial… After seeing all the evidence… After deliberating for several days… the jury UNANIMOUSLY found Kyle Rittenhouse NOT GUILTY on all five charges.
It infuriates me to look back at how – long before that verdict was reached – the media (and many Democrats) laid waste to Kyle, his family, his presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, his Constitutional rights, and anything that didn’t fit their narrative of Kyle being an evil, Trump supporting, white supremacist.
With Kyle Rittenhouse, there are two completely different things we must consider.
First is the wisdom / prudence / judgement of anyone – let alone a 17-year-old – showing up at a protest with a rifle, under those circumstances, “to protect people” (his words). But second and separate from that are the criminal charges filed against Kyle after shooting three people in what he said was self-defense.
*** Lacking the first doesn’t make you guilty of the second!
In other words, even though it may have been unwise for Kyle to have been there under those circumstances, that doesn’t eliminate his rights to self-defense! Yet our liberal media simply cannot understand or acknowledge that.
So with that in mind, here are a few random examples to illustrate just how bias and pathetic our mainstream media has become:
Having presumed Kyle’s guilt long before his trial, the NY Times took it upon themselves to remind its readers that Kyle’s “social media accounts showed strong support for officers.” A subtle yet obvious suggestion that supporting law enforcement could literally lead to violence.
National Public Radio (NPR) also attempted to frame Kyle’s support for law enforcement as somehow relevant to the criminal charges filed against him.
MSNBC searched high & low to find a former prosecutor willing to claim the shooting was driven by “the white supremacy that the Trump administration has enabled and endorsed.” A message echoed throughout that network’s coverage.
The Washington Post (and many others) absolutely LOST THEIR MARBLES when President Trump defended Kyle’s legal right to self-defense. Heaven forbid.
CBS News had no problem declaring that Rittenhouse had “murdered two men” before the jury even began deliberating. Outright proclaiming he’d committed murder before a verdict had been rendered!
We even had numerous elected Democrats like the congresswomen from Massachusetts and Minnesota call Kyle a “domestic terrorist.” Not to be outdone, President Biden referred to him as a “white supremacist.” Remember: all three men Kyle shot in what he says was self-defense were white.
I’m not condoning Kyle’s judgement (or lack thereof) for showing up at that protest under those circumstances. But I am saying he had an absolute right to self-defense based on the evidence, as the jury seemed to indicate with their NOT GUILTY verdicts.