There’ve been a lot of freakouts this week over the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings (we’re now talking about impeachment proceedings before the guy’s even confirmed), but we’re sure you remember the hubbub over Zina Bash allegedly throwing the “white power” hand signal on TV while seated directly behind Kavanaugh.
One guy zoomed in on his TV screen, posted the video and the accusation, and it went viral, fast.
As Twitchy also reported, the attempts to walk back from the accusation were pathetic, and that’s being kind; OK, maybe she didn’t use a white power sign, but she’s still a terrible person for supporting a terrible person. Amy Siskind eventually deleted her tweet and asked all of her liberal followers to “refocus” and not get distracted — by the very accusation she helped spread. How brave.
So we have to give massive props to writer Patterico (who’s written pieces for Twitchy sister site RedState), who actually corrected the record and … wait for it … apologized to Bash and her husband, who had come to her defense on Twitter.
I Am an Idiot: Zina Bash's OK Sign Was Completely Innocent After All. (Apologies to @USAttyBash and Zina Bash.) https://t.co/k5poXUb4qR
— Patterico (@Patterico) September 8, 2018
I'm just going to take my lumps on this one. I deserve it.
— Patterico (@Patterico) September 8, 2018
Hey, we make mistakes here at Twitchy and know first-hand it’s painful and embarrassing to have to issue that correction, but Patterico did it on his blog and deserves credit. He writes:
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There’s no sugar-coating this. I was wrong about this. Badly, badly wrong. Laughably wrong. Zina Bash, the former clerk of Kavanaugh’s who made the OK sign did it for an innocent reason.
…
I utterly screwed the pooch on this one. I’m leaving the post up with a prominent update and a link to this post. You guys were right and I was wrong.
I think it’s important to publish this because I think very few people have seen this explanation and/or the video I linked here. In all the people calling me an idiot over this, not one person supplied the information — which doesn’t make you ill-informed, but just tells me that the real explanation has not gotten enough publicity. Here’s hoping that this post can do just a little bit to fix that.
My sincere apologies to Zina Bash and her husband for contributing to the silly noise over this issue. I feel sick about it. I think (other than my usual Sunday morning post) that I’ll take the rest of the weekend off.
That innocent reason for making the sign? Plenty of conspiracy theorists noted that Bash had received a text message right before making the sign, assuming someone was directing her to do it. The Washington Post reported, however, that Bash was actually texting a staffer requesting a glass of water for Kavanaugh, and when it arrived, she gave an OK sign as thanks.
That doesn’t mean people are going to drop the conspiracy theory, but again, apologies are far too rare on Twitter, so good on Patterico.
It's not a whole lot of fun getting a bunch of retweets for a tweet that non-ironically starts: "I Am an Idiot." But it's not as bad as what Zina Bash has had to go through.
— Patterico (@Patterico) September 8, 2018
Related:
"Let's refocus": Amy Siskind totally backtracks, deletes tweet about white power hand sign at Kavanaugh hearing https://t.co/opmbX1K8DM
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 5, 2018
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