According to Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, what really went wrong at the now-infamous McKinney, Texas pool party wasn’t the out-of-control behavior of Police Officer David Casebolt, it was that someone recorded it.
On The Five, Gutfeld began a segment called, “What if your screw-ups were posted on Facebook?”
GUTFELD: Yesterday, a police officer in a small Texas town resigned over an incident at a pool. We know this because the incident was caught on a camera phone, instantly making a local conflict a national phenomenon. It’s nuts. And with national phenomenons come the media convulsion, the descending of otherwise jobless activists, the placement of said incident into a “larger trend,” all without pause for sober assessment.
If you were a space alien, how would this look to you? Well you’d notice a trend. Number one, local goes national. Two, teams form to take sides immediately. Three, someone gets punished. Four, rinse and repeat.
How would the story have unfolded before the iPhone? It would have stayed local and they’d deal with the rowdy kids and the overzealous cop right there. But now it’s PC ping pong: We rush to defend or condemn before processing what’s seen, and race always takes first place.
Each day we’re greeted with a new Zapruder film, ugly tape that invites outrage. A fight in the store, a cop pepper-spraying someone. No one records the good stuff because you can’t sell that to a restless, jaded public. And that’s what we are. Imagine if you were doing your job—a salesman, a banker, a plumber—and some guy’s filming you 24/7. And as you work, he just stares and hums. And when you screw up he posts that on Facebook. Congratulations, you’re now a cop.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m for outing the bad ones. But in a world of tattle tales, who have no idea what the hell you put up with everyday, if I were a good cop I’d point the cameras at us.
Of course, in many professions, people are on film the entire time they’re on the clock. Bankers for example. Street and traffic cameras capture many of us as we just go from one place to another.
But if Gutfeld really hates these videos, How about he suggests to Roger Ailes that Fox no longer show footage from those teacher gotcha stories, or offer a big apology for the discredited ACORN videos and offer an even bigger apology to Jonathan Gruber?
Not only that, but may Gutfeld should also take it up with sometime guest host on The Five, Jesse Watters. He’s the guy who conducts ambush interviews in order to air the embarrassing footage on The O’Reilly Factor. Confronting Watters about that would make an interesting discussion for The Five, don’t you think? Surely, if a teenager in Texas recording the unnecessarily brutal treatment of some black teens is this worthy of your contempt, you can dedicate a few minutes to calling Watters out.
Finally, the irony here is stunning. In a week when Fox News promoted the not-quite-accurate-but-self-serving account of the pool party from a guy they forgot to mention is a twice-convicted felon and when a Hannity show guest smeared a black guest as a “race pimp,” Gutfeld felt the need to lecture others about pausing for sober reflecton.
Watch it below, from the June 10 The Five.
