When someone faces a trial by media, the default public position of the Obama administration has been to support the prevailing narrative. But in three recent high-profile cases, subsequent federal investigations have overturned the conventional wisdom and vindicated the people pilloried for questioning it from the beginning.
Take the case of Bowe Bergdahl, who was traded for five members of the Taliban by President Obama in May 2014. At the time of his release from captivity, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said that Bergdahl served “with honor and distinction.” Obama announced the release at a Rose Garden ceremony with Bergdahl’s parents and walked away with them arm-in-arm.
Those who went against the administration and preferred narrative — including Bergdahl’s former comrades in arms, who accused him of desertion — were portrayed as crackpots, defaming an honorable soldier. Ten months later, the Army has charged Bergdahl with desertion. He is innocent until proven guilty, but the fact that the U.S. military would charge him after the mainstream media already decided he was a victim, is a sign that government is not always untrustworthy.
Just two weeks ago, the media had another narrative dismantled — the whole notion that unarmed Ferguson resident Michael Brown had put his hands up in surrender but was shot anyway by police officer Darren Wilson.
The narrative spun last summer and fall was that Brown did not fight with or charge at Wilson, as Wilson and some witnesses claimed. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed that the Department of Justice would hold its own investigation of the Brown shooting, despite a grand jury refusing to indict Wilson. Sure enough, DOJ found that Brown had charged and fought the officer before being shot. Based on its finding, the DOJ declined to bring criminal charges against Wilson.
And just a week before the DOJ declined to charge Darren Wilson, the department declined to charge George Zimmerman with civil rights violations.
That decision came despite a February 2012 incident, in which Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. President Obama gave a speech a month after the shooting, before the investigation or the trial had concluded, saying that “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
After a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Martin, the DOJ vowed to conduct its own investigation. Seven months later, the DOJ announced that Zimmerman would not face federal civil rights charges due to insufficient evidence.
In each case, those who disputed the prevailing narrative were labeled as ignorant by the media. And they also turned out to be right, backed up by investigations by federal government agencies.
The point here is that in example after example, the prevailing narrative sold by the media and social justice activists has been disproven after an investigation of the facts. When it comes down to it, it’s cheap and easy for Obama to say something in public to show solidarity with popular opinion. But having to back up that same popular opinion in a legal proceeding — or in Bergdahl’s case, by ignoring a possible crime — is often impossible.
