I’m not a fan of Mike Johnson. I suspect that he and I would likely have few things we could agree on at all. So it gives me no joy to defend this guy. But if my goal is to be truly fair and unbiased, I have no choice but to do so.
Yes. I know that in regards to releasing the video of Jan 6 he said, “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other, you know, concerns and problems,”. I also know that the GOP party of “law and order” has issues with the DOJ but the reality is that people who regularly make statements to the public are no more perfect than any of us. Every once in a while they say things incorrectly. Often it’s just a slip of the tongue. Other times, it seems that their internal dialog gets wrapped around their legs causing them to fall on their asses. In this case, I feel confident saying that it’s the latter rather than being an intentional attempt to mislead people.
I’ve seen this countless times on both sides of the aisle and in other areas that have nothing to do with politics. The bottom line is that everyone screws up now and then. When it comes to public gaffes, the frequency of such screw-ups is directly proportional to the amount of time that they spend speaking in public.
The reason that I believe it was an honest mistake is simple. The statement that the blurring of faces was to protect people from the DOJ would be total nonsense even to the most casual observer. The guy didn’t become Speaker of the House because he’s a complete idiot. If that were the required credentials, James Comer would be there instead.
Anyone that’s paid even partial attention to what’s going on in Washington knows darned well that it’s about PUBLIC DISCLOSURE of the video. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to recognize that the DOJ and other government officials have access to the raw footage and have had it for quite some time. That same raw footage has been used to charge over 1200 individuals with their actions on that day. Johnson would be well aware of this.
Supporting my thoughts on this is the fact that as soon as the inquiries began coming in about the statement, his office promptly issued a correction, saying that it was to prevent the public from being able to recognize people in the videos. That is certainly the the right thing to do, and it would be even if it weren’t such a sensitive topic. In addition, he realized when he said it that he’d slipped up. The words following “DOJ” show that. “and to have other, you know, concerns and problems”.
Unfortunately, he did the same as every other politician does when they do make such an error. They roll forward hoping that nobody notices. But that’s just the way that human beings that speak publicly do things. The overall goal is to minimize it and move forward, not double-back and bring more attention to the mistake.
It’s for these reasons that I’m calling the claims that Mike Johnson was trying to intentionally mislead people into believing that the blurring of faces is to protect them from the DOJ Detected Bullshit.
