A Trampling in the Gate

 

As a journalist, I take a few cues from  Old Testament prophets.  After all, they were the political pundits of the day, speaking "truth to power".  

They were also a bit "shaken and not stirred" regarding their mission:  shaken by God for the delivery, but not particularly stirred regarding the outcome.  If God said it, the business was His to make it come to pass.  And on more than one occasion after delivery of a strong rebuke, a prophet would retreat in fear and await better days.  The bravery could be brief.  

II Kings 7 recounts the story of Prophet Elisha offering up some needed good news, the torque on the story offered by a highly placed official, and the trampling in the gate of the same official all within a twenty-four hour window. Sounds like a news cycle to me.  

So let's discuss the current trampling in the gate,  and the fallout from wretched journalism standards.

Disinformation is devious.  This is disinformation: 

https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/16/heather-cox-richardson-substack-charlie-kirk-tyler-robinson-assassin-left-wing-lies-false/

Call her Eurydice.  Do look back.  Do look back at her words.  Relegate her lies to the underworld. 

Misinformation is mischievous.  This is misinformation:

https://nypost.com/2025/09/18/entertainment/jimmy-kimmels-full-controversial-comments-on-charlie-kirk-that-led-to-abc-pulling-jimmy-kimmel-live/

Jimmy Kimmel was also extraordinarily sloppy.  With his research staff and available resources, he should have trashed the monologue and more carefully considered his words.  But then again, maybe his only source was Heather Cox Richardson?  Journalistic criticism is valid when it can be backed up by the facts.  But journalism is discredited when cross-pollination of rumor is swift-boated across multiple platforms.  He  boarded the swift boat and  has now been trampled in the gate.  

That being said,  I hope he does not grovel.  An apology?  Yes.  But extorting funds from his wallet to be given to an organization he despises?  Nope.  Enough is enough.

There are other trampling in the gate moments: 

There have also been a small spritz of employees released from employment;  students expelled for disrespecting their pride of place on a university campus.  These individuals released remarkably calloused remarks regarding the brutal public execution of Charlie Kirk. It truly was more brutal a view than the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

I believe these legal maneuvers against employees and students are not necessarily wrong.   I would have also relieved more than a few of their employment had they resided under my chain of command.  But we are talking about course correction, and a temporary bit of a nudge in the right direction.  We are free to speak but accountable for the same.

The trampling must stop for the sake of our Constitution.  Citizen "arrests" in the form of doxxing must cease. The lust for vigilantism must be curbed.  In America, we arrest criminals.  We do not arrest stupid people. Obviously,  this past week we have become painfully aware of their presence.  But  their punishment is built in - and eventually catches up with them in ways which can be both surprising and refreshing.   

 Let us finish with the trampling in the gate and return to societal homeostasis where each of us greet the other as a brother and not mortal enemy.

 https://www.bible.com/bible/114/2KI.7.NKJV

 

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