When President Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore on Friday, CNN described it as a “monument of two slave owners” on “land wrestled [sic] away from Native Americans.” Back in 2008, when Barack Obama visited the monument, CNN was singing a very different tune about Mount Rushmore and the Democrat president.
“Barack Obama is campaigning in South Dakota,” CNN anchor Ron Marciano said in 2008. “That state’s primary is Tuesday. Obama arrived there late last night and got a good look around Mt. Rushmore — it’s quite a sight if you haven’t seen it.”
“Barack Obama is in South Dakota today,” added his fellow anchor Betty Nguyen. “He arrived there last night. Take a look at this. He got a good glimpse of the majestic Mount Rushmore. Well, South Dakota and Montana have closed out the primary season on Tuesday.”
Fascinating how CNN called Mount Rushmore "majestic" and "quite a sight" in 2008 when Obama visited, but now its a symbol of slavery and stolen landhttps://t.co/3sV1ZEfW9L https://t.co/GTIH9tzOim pic.twitter.com/5Vu6uQp4XS
— Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) July 3, 2020
On Friday, however, CNN‘s tone about Mount Rushmore could not have been more different. CNN‘s Washington correspondent Joe Johns had this to say:
“[A]t a time of racial unease, when protesters are tearing down statues of slaveholders and calling for the names of Confederate generals to be removed from army bases, the Rushmore event is a reminder that Trump is fighting to preserve these relics of heritage and history that some see as symbols of oppression. And to indigenous people, Mt. Rushmore, with four white presidents, two of whom were slave owners, is one of those symbols.”
CNN also spoke to Sioux Falls Argus Leader columnist Stu Whitney, who said:
“I think that is a source of concern for people that see this certainly within a state with a Native American population nearly 10 percent and much higher in Rapid City, concerned about a place that has a lot of spiritual significance. And historical significance when you look at what they and most historians consider to be broken promises and broken treaties.”
“President Trump will be at Mt. Rushmore where he’ll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans told that, uh, be focusing on the effort to ‘tear down our country’s history,'” said CNN correspondent Leyla Santiago. It’s funny how things change!
Pursuant to the new moral stricture promulgated this week by the NYT & CNN — that Mount Rushmore is a shameful monument to racism and white supremacy — both CNN and Bernie Sanders ought to repent for this praise they jointly heaped on it in 2016:pic.twitter.com/0MRNO2PJ2j
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 4, 2020
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This piece was written by PoliZette Staff on July 4, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
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