The history of the American and French Revolutions shows that heroes can be discovered or created for political purposes. They can produce true tragedies when they are used to radicalize some and dehumanize others.
"Below is my column in The Hill on the recent controversies over enhanced images of Alex Pretti and his shooting in Minnesota.
"As seen throughout our history, Pretti has achieved mythic status — even having an ice cream invented after him by one of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. Reality recedes when politics demand the perfect hero.
"Here is the column:
“ 'Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy.”
" That statement, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, has never been truer than with the posthumous treatment of Alex Pretti, killed in a confrontation with federal officers in Minneapolis. He has been called a “hero” and a “martyr” by the left as a rallying cry for protests around the country. In the process, many have “enhanced” both his story and his image.
"MS NOW has admitted that it used an AI-enhanced photo of Pretti that made him look more handsome. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was criticized for bringing to the Senate floor an altered image, featuring a headless immigration agent, that made it look like officers executed a kneeling Pretti with a shot to the head.
" Pretti needs to be be inviolate to make the government seem vile in the eyes of the public. He is being described as the combination of Florence Nightingale and Crispus Attucks.
" A CNN panelist and co-host of “The View,” Ana Navarro, voiced the new orthodoxy that Pretti was the “perfect guy … the guy you’d want to date your daughter, the guy you want your son to grow up to be, a decent human being who was serving humanity.” She added that he was so perfect that “there is nothing that has been said about that man that isn’t wonderful. And so they can’t malign him.”
" The point is that any skepticism, let alone criticism, is no longer acceptable.
"In fairness, Pretti was vilified before he was canonized. Many of us objected that the videotape evidence did not support the original description of Pretti’s conduct. Pretti did not threaten officers or approach them brandishing a weapon.
" But he did disobey police orders and he did resist arrest. Indeed, eleven days earlier, he had spat at officers, damaged a police vehicle by kicking out its taillight, and again resisted officers.
" The remaking of Alex Pretti by both sides is strikingly familiar. On Tuesday, my book on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution will be released. “Rage and the Republic” looks at both the American and French Revolutions to explore why one became the world’s oldest democracy and the other became a blood-soaked terror.". . . More...
