From Scott Crass at The Moderate Voice:
Mo Udall once quipped, “Everything that needs to be said has been said – but not everyone’s said it.”
The comments about President Trump’s response to the crisis in Charlottesville have inspired reaction from everyone, and virtually none have been in the president’s defense. There’s a reason for that. His handling on multiple occasions during the past week have ranged from inept to heinous to dangerous to even offering countenance to the white-supremacist movement. But by repeatedly suggesting that both sides are to blame, Mr. Trump has signaled once again that he is not only tone deaf but far removed from a presidential level.
It started hours after the car plowed into a group of counter-protesters when the president called the incident the result of, “many sides.” He then paused for emphasis and again repeated the term, “many sides.” Let’s examine that. Protests are freedom of speech and freedom of expression – that is a Constitutionally given right to both sides. Backing a car into protesters is not. The President of the United States did not get on television to condemn the violence because thee were protests and counter-protests – he did so presumably because a car intentionally struck 19 people, killing one. That is not the fault of, “many sides, many sides.”