UPDATE: Ric Grenell doubled-down after being called out by hundreds. Instead of deleting the original Tweet, he posted a heavily-edited video again trying to disparage Kathy Barnette. This time, it takes her out of context multiple times to make it seem in very short clips that she’s a BLM racist. It’s quite sloppy; there’s a part where she says “systemic racism” and then the video skips to “specifically amongst police officers.”
As one Twitter commenter noted, “100% splices.”
This is troubling. Watch @Kathy4Truth in her own words. https://t.co/wjL8aKXsUF
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 11, 2022
I like former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. He was one of the most capable of Donald Trump’s appointments and has spearheaded many valuable initiatives in and out of government. But he just did something that absolutely blew my mind and potentially destroys his credibility going forward.
I’m hoping it was a mistake. I’m hoping it was just a hasty move and he didn’t realize what he was doing. But considering hundreds of replies to his Tweet point out what he did and he still hasn’t deleted it, I would say chances are strong he’s just playing dirty politics for the sake of his buddy and candidate, Dr. Oz Mehmet. He has replied to people, including me, who have pointed out that the quote Tweet he posted was out-of-context and the Tweet is still up over an hour later.
So that leaves two possibilities. Either he was hacked or he’s engaged in extremely dirty politics to disparage an America First candidate days before the primary. If it’s the former, which I hope it is, then I will update this post and offer an apology to Grenell. If it’s the latter, then I’ll edit the many positive articles I’ve written about him over the years — defending him at times against attacks similar to the one he seems to be engaged in now — to reflect this new understanding of his character.
Here’s the Tweet:
For those of us opposed to Black Lives Matter and who do not support defunding police, this Tweet by U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette seems damning. But those who clicked through to investigate learned that she was using the hashtags to link to a video in which she is DENOUNCING Black Lives Matter and calling for MORE police. Here’s her post:
As I noted, there have been hundreds of Tweets, including mine, that Grenell has seen and responded to alerting him that the video Barnette linked to was not in support of BLM. For him to keep it up is the purest form of dirty politics I’ve ever seen. It’s intended to make it appear that she has the opposite opinion about BML and defunding police. Unless he was hacked, it was his hope that voters would see this, not investigate, and come out thinking that Barnette supports BLM and defunding the police.
What makes all this worse is that many of his responses have him pulling out the “discrimination” and “intolerance” cards. For example, I Tweeted this:
“I am so disappointed that @RichardGrenell posted an out of context Tweet to make @Kathy4Truth look bad. She Tweeted #BLM and #DefundThePolice hashtags to link to a video OPPPOSING them and highlighting that BLM does NOT care about Black lives. The @DrOz cult is despicable.”
His reply:
“Despicable? Grow up. Don’t be intolerant. People have different views from you.”
Intolerant? Pointing out that he was being disingenuous is not intolerance. It’s defending the unambiguous truth. As I told him in my reply, I am so disappointed that he would stoop so low.
To be fair, I believe this all ties back to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the RINO candidate that Grenell supports. It seems like the type of dirty politics that Dr. Oz would support, perhaps even prompt. It’s no secret that I support Kathy Barnette, but I do not engage in calling out opponents of people I support unless they are truly despicable. Dr. Oz qualifies.
Either Ric Grenell was hacked or he’s engaged in the dirtiest political attack I’ve seen in my life. As a surrogate for Dr. Oz, it’s up to the candidate to denounce this play or accept that his campaign supports it.
Image by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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