More than 100,000 people came to Washington last week for the March for Life. Most were young, pro-life high school and college students. Among them was a group of boys from a Catholic high school in Covington, Kentucky, near where I grew up.

When the March for Life was over, the boys were told to wait for their bus at the Lincoln Memorial. As they were waiting, they were confronted by a group of black men. Undisputed video shows these men calling the boys “fa-gots” and other slurs.  They mocked two black Catholic students with the “N word." 

This harassment went on for over an hour. The Catholic students showed incredible maturity and restraint.

As this harassment was taking place, a group of Native Americans, participating in the Indigenous People’s March, approached the boys. One of the Native Americans shouted: "White people, go back to Europe. This is not your land." 

One of the Native Americans, an elder of the Omaha tribe named Nathan Phillips, walked toward the boys. Mr. Phillips was banging a drum as he walked right up to Nick Sandmann’s face. Sandmann stood there smiling at Phillips, who eventually walked away. It turns out that Phillips has a history of inciting confrontations to advance his political aims. (Here and here.)

But within a short period of time, multiple left-wing sites released photos and edited video making it look like the Catholic boys had instigated the entire confrontation and mercilessly mocked a Native American veteran. 

Phillips went on MSNBC and described the Catholic boys as an "ugly mob.” In other interviews, he claimed the boys were chanting, “Build the wall.” But none of the videos substantiate that claim.   

Remember the infamous Duke Lacrosse rape case? Referring to that journalistic debacle, Evan Thomas quipped, “The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”

This is what the left does now. It creates false narratives and uses them to drive its agenda, irrespective of the facts. But what happened next was, in its own way, even more disturbing. 

The historic National Review, started by conservative icon William Buckley, jumped on the left-wing bandwagon and issued a story at three in the morning saying what the boys did was the equivalent of “spitting on the cross of Jesus Christ.” As the facts came out, they pulled down the article. 

My good friend, and religious liberty warrior, Robert George assumed the left-wing narrative was true. He has since apologized for piling on the students.

Even the Catholic Diocese of Covington accepted the left-wing narrative, and threatened to expel students with no apparent investigation of its own. 

How does a bunch of radical men harassing a group of high school boys turn into a narrative of white bigotry? Well, some of the boys were wearing MAGA hats, so naturally they must be “deplorable and irredeemable,” right? 

This sad episode shows the power of the left to cower our own advocates into submission.

These were Midwestern pro-life young men, some of whom clearly support the idea of making America great again. In today’s media environment, any conservative worth their salt should have waited for more information before joining the media lynch mob. 

We have seen leftist thugs assault conservatives on university campuses, beat up kids wearing MAGA hats, disrupt the confirmation hearings of a Supreme Court justice, accost senators in public, harass members of the White House staff and shout down speakers. In virtually every case, the entire media complex praises their “right to dissent.”

But you had better not smile at a Native American man beating a drum in your face.  

Trump’s Offer

We’ll have more details in tomorrow’s report, but on Saturday President Trump presented congressional Democrats with a compromise plan to re-open the government. Unfortunately, it was immediately rejected.  The shutdown showdown continues.

King’s Legacy

Today America honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We honor Dr. King because he recognized that in spite the original sin of slavery, America is a fundamentally decent county.

It was a powerful argument because blacks believed in America and our founding documents as much as whites.  King insisted that black Americans be included in the promises of the Declaration of Independence, in which our founders wrote: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

King said that skin color should not determine one’s place in society.  He famously dreamt of a time when all people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  

We now live in an age when civil rights groups preach that America is inherently evil and that skin color is the only thing that matters. I think Reverend King would be mortified by how his message has been distorted, even rejected by many so-called “progressives.”

As a Christian pastor, King knew that the power of the Declaration of Independence came from its recognition that our rights come not from any human institution but from God.

This truth may explain why as America moves further away from God, those who claim the mantle of racial equality and civil rights are moving further away from King’s message.