"They're flying the colors of the Palestinians while they do it," Scott Jennings said on CNN, describing rioters burning down historical landmarks and looting stores across France. "It has nothing to do with anything other than this attempt to tear down Western civilization wherever they perceive weakness."
That was about as far as he got before liberal guest Leigh McGowan began to unravel.
Jennings, the lone conservative panelist CNN keeps around presumably for ratings purposes, laid out what anyone with a functioning internet connection already knows. France is suffering. Europe is suffering. A migrant crisis fueled by years of open-border ideology has produced exactly what critics warned it would produce — violence, destruction, and the targeting of Jewish communities in cities like Marseille, where Jewish-owned businesses were singled out while Muslim-owned businesses were left untouched.
McGowan's rebuttal was a masterclass in missing the point. "These things that happen in France are because a bunch of students started it because they didn't like the way that the country was being run," she insisted. "They weren't getting enough. It's the same problem that we have all over the world right now. There is not enough for the people that aren't at the top. There is not enough education. There is not enough money. We are not being paid enough for our jobs."
So rioters are torching Marseille, waving Palestinian flags, targeting Jewish storefronts — and the explanation is income inequality. Got it.
McGowan did concede, through visible agitation, that things had "gotten out of hand" and that "terrible things" were happening. But she couldn't bring herself to address the Palestinian flags. Couldn't address the ethnic targeting. Couldn't address any of the specific details Jennings raised. The entire counter-argument boiled down to: people are poor and angry, therefore none of the uncomfortable specifics matter.
Watch the exchange for yourself
Jennings didn't flinch. He'd already said the part that matters — that the rioters "perceive weakness" and that European governments "have allowed this migration crisis." McGowan's meltdown only proved the thesis. The political class that enabled the crisis can't even describe it accurately on television. They're still workshopping economic explanations for mobs waving foreign flags and burning down landmarks in a Western capital.
The clip went viral because it follows a pattern. Jennings says the obvious thing. A liberal panelist treats the obvious thing as an outrage. The audience at home watches someone get upset at facts and draws the obvious conclusion.
This is what CNN has become — a network where one panelist states the news and the rest of the table argues it isn't happening. Jennings pointed to rioters waving Palestinian colors while destroying French property. McGowan pointed to wage stagnation.
In Marseille, Jewish business owners boarding up their storefronts probably aren't thinking about the wealth gap.