Not Even a Colleague's Arrest Can Get Righty Grifters to Take America's Survival Seriously
There are no signs of introspection yet at the Blaze after the Biden Justice Department perp-walked journalist Steve Baker.
On Friday, after years of threats, the Biden Department of Justice arrested Blaze journalist Steve Baker for having entered the U.S. Capitol to cover the January 6 riot, while doing nothing to warrant the perp walk he was subjected to. Per Legal Insurrection, he faces four misdemeanor charges:
Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority
Disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds
Disorderly conduct in a capitol building
Parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building
Notice that the wording does not mention reporting, journalism, or media. This is important.
According to an affidavit from FBI agent Craig Noyes detailing (the government’s version of) the facts of the case, Baker “ignored instructions to move off the steps” in front of a barricade to get footage of the crowd, “entered the United States Capitol through the broken Senate Wing Door,” discussed being inside Nancy Pelosi’s office at one point, “antagonized” police officers by “repeatedly” asking “are you going to use that [gun] on us,” was inside the Capitol for a grand total of about 37 minutes...and that’s it.
No violence. No rioting. No break-in. No assaulting. No vandalism. No property damage. No threats. No attempt to disrupt or deter government proceedings. Just walking around like scores of other people let in by police that day, filming stuff like various “legitimate” (read: liberal) journalists did without incident. From this description, the only thing that even sort of sounds like a misdemeanor is not complying when the officer asked Baker to get off the steps—and even there, we’ve yet to hear Baker’s side of that story, and either way it’s hardly the stuff that would be worth the time of federal prosecutors who supposedly had an “attempted insurrection” to deal with.
In the interest of comprehensiveness, we should also note a couple other comments Baker (who says he’s “never been a Trump supporter”) made before and after the riot that conservative media seems to be glossing over: that vandalizing Pelosi’s office “couldn't happen to a better deserving bitch,” a joke about regretting not stealing Pelosi’s computers, “look out your windows bitches, look what’s coming,” and “do I approve of what happened today? I approve 100%.” The Pelosi comments were reckless under the circumstances and approving a riot is abhorrent—but none of that is or should be the slightest bit relevant to whether he committed a crime.
It's a transparent case of malicious, politically-motivated prosecution (which, by the way, Donald Trump absolutely could have pardoned before leaving office). And as such, it’s a perfect outrage generator for the conservative infotainment industry to monetize. That’s not automatically a bad thing; people should be outraged about this case. But it would be nice if those operating under at least the pretense of wanting to accomplish something at least pretended to care about how we got here and what to do about it.
Blaze head honcho Glenn Beck:
They're making the process, the punishment. Because they don't have anything. And so they're making -- they're setting an example by scaring everyone. And I swear to you, America. If you don't wake up on this one, if these reporters, if these journalists don't report this. May God have mercy on your soul! For what you've done to the republic. This is a journalist. That is being arrested. And you say nothing? May God have mercy on your soul.
Blaze editor-in-chief Matthew Peterson:
It’s hard to put the feeling into words. But this is disgraceful [...] We must all rally and end this totalitarian madness.
Gee, fellas, then perhaps your media company should have taken more seriously the matter of nominating a presidential candidate who would have actually been up to the task of cleaning out the FBI and the Justice Department and punishing those responsible for things like subjecting your employees to “totalitarian madness” and ensuring they never happen again.
Perhaps your company shouldn’t have decided it was more important to monetize the supporters of the raging incompetent frontrunner who let the DOJ’s rot fester on his watch, blew his reelection against the guy now at the top of the current regime, convened the predestined-to-fail event where all these people were arrested, and has spent every day since making clear he hasn’t learned or changed for the better in any way, shape, or form.
Perhaps your company should have done the moral, responsible, sane, conservative thing and clearly thrown your weight behind helping nominate the candidate who embodied everything you claim to believe in and who had actual credibility on the subject of cleaning out DOJ.
But no, Glenn Beck preferred to declare he was neutral on the 2024 GOP primary (in the course of answering that he “strongly disagree[d]” with Trump trashing the pro-life cause while making clear it didn’t upset him nearly as much as being expected to take a principled stand), give Trump puffball interviews where he could claim things like “we did a great job with Covid” without pushback, defend the honor of MAGA from the “cult” accusation (in the process ridiculously framing Trump as a “destroyer of the Deep State”), and give him a pass for leftist overtures he would have buried any other Republican for. Last month, Peterson actually scoffed at conservatives who tell him Trump’s “just got too many flaws to work with and he can’t change.”
The fact that the Blaze allowed individual personalities like Steve Deace and Daniel Horowitz to be strong Trump critics and pro-DeSantis voices was welcome, but in no way exempted the company’s leadership from doing the right thing. Either weaponized government is a real threat to all of us, in which case it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation and we don’t get the option of indifference between a real solution and a sham just because the sham is popular, or it’s not. It can’t only be sort of a threat that only sort of matters to us.
That’s how a serious movement handles real threats. Unfortunately, we have the worst of both worlds: the threat is real, but the movement it’s targeting could not be less serious.