A man rammed his car this weekend into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six (so far) and injuring dozens more. Eyewitnesses claim the driver intentionally sped up and swerved his vehicle into revelers.
But let’s not call it an “attack,” suggests NBC News. Rather, let’s call it an “accident.”
In a video uploaded Tuesday describing the arrest of suspect Darrell E. Brooks Jr., who is black, NBC included a caption that read, “Video captured by a Ring camera appears to show [Brooks] in front of a home before being arrested in connection to the Waukesha parade accident.”
At MSNBC, national security analyst Clint Watts likewise referred this week to the Waukesha slayings as an “accident” before correcting himself and using the word “attack.”
“One thing that you worry about,” he said, “is the idea of contagion. Whether it has anything to do with this accident last night and the killing of these people, others might be thinking of an attack like this somewhere in the world.”
As he spoke, MSNBC flashed an on-air headline that read, “Questions swirl about security at WI parade tragedy.”
Ah, yes. The biggest question on everyone’s mind is whether the security at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin was too lax. Never mind figuring out answers to questions such as: What were the suspect’s motives? Why was he out on a measly $1,000 bail despite reportedly running over a woman with his car? What are the circumstances surrounding the multiple killings at the parade?
No, our questions regarding the parade’s security measures are positively swirling.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, declined this week to say the name Darrell E. Brooks Jr. during a segment covering the Waukesha attack. She referred to him instead simply as “the suspect,” even though his name had already been released to the public.
NBC employees seem incapable of finding a middle ground.
They either downplay or ignore breaking news stories or exaggerate them with incredibly deceitful and maliciously misleading hyperbole. It’s usually one or the other, rarely in between.
As we saw in the case of the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, NBC staffers immediately painted the white 18-year-old Illinoisan, who was found not guilty last week on all charges related to the fatal shootings of two men during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as a terrorist, a white supremacist, and a murderer.
There is no evidence to support these allegations, but this hasn’t stopped the NBC people from making the claim all the same.
Even after the jury announced its verdict, NBC changed gears only slightly, arguing Rittenhouse’s acquittal is further proof the United States is a white supremacist country and that its justice system is designed specifically to protect and promote racism. The network’s staffers and guests continue to push their own theories regarding what happened in Kenosha and what it all means for the U.S., racism, social justice, white people, etc., even after Rittenhouse was acquitted.
MSNBC this week aired a segment in which guest David Henderson argued the Kenosha shootings were a victory for “vigilantes” everywhere. Other guests on separate MSNBC segments this weekend likewise argued the Rittenhouse trial was a major victory for “white” vigilantism. One guest argued specifically the verdict goes to show the extent to which the U.S. justice system favors white defendants. The weekend segment, by the way, began with a quote from New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who refers to Rittenhouse as a “murderer.”
However, following a fatal vehicular attack this weekend in Waukesha, the same network that had no problem labeling Rittenhouse a terrorist and a murderer is suddenly loath to speculate about motives. NBC is loath even to refer to the Waukesha attack as such.
Indeed, for the peacock network, the Waukesha attack, which has already claimed the lives of six people, is apparently just an “accident” for which a certain unnamed “suspect” may or may not be responsible.
