Days after Nathan Phillips’ story of his confrontation with a group of students in Washington was thoroughly discredited, many on the left are still rallying behind him, pretending he was somehow a victim.
This, even after both the New York Times and the Washington Post had to publish not just “clarifications” about the incident itself, but even corrections of his claim to be a Vietnam, or “Vietnam times,” veteran. (Turns out he was a stateside refrigerator technician, and frequently AWOL.)
It also turns out Phillips made nearly identical allegations against a few college students four years ago.
Yet the instant a single video of this incident hit Twitter, journalists jumped to uncritically accept Phillips’ account of how a mob of MAGA-hat-wearing white teens surrounded and taunted him. After all, the image exploited reporters’ preconceptions: Here was an aged Native American surrounded by a pack of smirking pro-Trump teens.
But full videos of the incident soon showed he was lying: He was the one who confronted the students, unprovoked, beating a drum just inches from their faces.
In fact, video shows the Covington school students were themselves being taunted with racist and homophobic slurs by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites.
Yet Phillips claims the kids “were in the process of attacking these four black individuals” and “looked like they were going to lynch them,” hence his move to “do something.” Why not beat his drum at the “Israelite” aggressors?
The video also shows, contra Phillips, no sign the kids were defiantly chanting “Build that wall.” Nor does it feature Phillips saying anything that sounds remotely like an effort to pacify the situation.
Yet he still has supporters because he keeps crafting new narratives that appeal to left-liberal prejudice. He certainly has the right bottom line, though: “Time for lies to be not accepted anymore,” he told CNN.
