See for Yourself

"Who do you believe?   Me, or your lying eyes?"

Actual quote, from Grocho Marx, is, "Who do you believe, me or what you see with your own eyes?"

It is humor.   Obviously, what you see with your own eyes, right there in front of you, is more believable than something someone tells you is happening, especially someone with an interest in lying to you, or at least spinning an implausible version of it.   Right?

No.

The liberal internet  and the anti-Trump internet (i.e. Huffington Post among many) are shocked at Donald Trump allowing his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, injure a reporter and get himself charged with "battery".    

A reader may have already decided it was a typical-Trump-mysoganistic-outrage.   OK.  Many people do not like Trump, and for good reason.   You may have heard something about her being "thrown to the ground", her having been man-handled and bullied.   You have a right to your opinion.

What do you see?

So--for fun--let's look at this as a Rorschach Test.   Let's find out what you see, with your own eyes. Try to dismiss the suspicion that I am trying to convince you of something you don't want to believe.   Also try to dismiss what you have heard about it.  It is about six seconds of video.   Give yourself a chance to be your own eyewitness.

https://goo.gl/8vd0nm

Go ahead watch it again.   I watched it a couple of times.   Decide what you saw.

Here is what I saw:

1.  a crowded moving scrum of people around Trump moving left to right.

2.  a women wearing a yellow top next to, possibly attempting to talk with, Donald Trump as he continued walking away from her.

3.  a man behind her grab her upper arm and pull her away from Trump who kept moving, which separated Trump from the woman.

4.  all participants--Trump, the woman in yellow, and the man who pulled at her--were upright, with no scuffling or apparent agitation, but after a second or so Trump had moved away from her.

From the Video: Lewandowski and the reporter

Was this a "battery", or was this light crowd-control in a jostling crowd of people?  I am not a lawyer, but two lawyers currently in my home told me that "battery" consists of unwanted touching of any kind, although "consent" to touching is a defense.   If one is standing in a busy hotel elevator and one is bumped by a woman bringing her suitcase and baby stroller into the elevator you experienced "unwanted touch" but presumably the very fact of being in an elevator implied consent to the jostling that is common.

I have been in and near candidates at the end of public appearances.   There is jostling.  Camera-people want their shots, reporters want to shout questions, fans want selfies, people want their tee shirts signed, people hold up books to autograph.   It is crowded and one is touched on multiple sides.   And sometimes the candidate is late to his next appointment so aides are pushing him along.   

By multiple instances of personal experience I would say that jostling and touching is inevitable and a bit of shoving by aides and bodyguards is common, especially with or against someone attempting to delay or monopolize the candidate.   If it had been me there in the yellow top, saying "Mr. Trump, can I ask a question and get a quick selfie, please?" I would expect to have been pulled away from him by someone.

Here are some takeaways from the video:

Liberal media.  Right now, as I type, on MSNBC I hear a discussion by commentators on the "battery" and on Trump's problem with female voters.   The event is being used by the liberal media to document a story of Trump misogyny.  They are describing brutality and bullying.  What I saw was the normal effort of staff to keep the candidate moving.

The Washington Post Description of that Video

The Washington Post is unabashedly anti-Trump, and their commentary on this is Grocho Marx-ian, telling us to believe their description of the event rather than what I, for one, think I observe.   See for yourself:     Washington post:   https://goo.gl/0tHDOJ

Trump wins.  Trump does what Trump does: double down, which strengthens his brand.   He is widely criticized by the media and by Cruz for his shocking defense of a batterer.  Trump said that Lewandowski did nothing wrong, that the videotape proves it, that the battery story was based on a dishonest police report by the woman (saying she was thrown to the ground).   Trump is showing a trait people like: defense for his team.  The implication is that he will defend America when it is falsely accused just as he is defending Lewandowski when he is falsely accused.

Backlash against hyper-correctness

Plus Trump gets in another criticism of a political correctness that is quick to claim victimhood, sort of another version of campus trigger warnings and instant-offense that makes everyone a target vulnerable to a charge of racism, sexism, or some other "ism" of offense.  She was a reporter trying to get a story from a candidate walking away from her.  Trump was doing what he had to do, keep moving.   Lewandowski was doing what he was supposed to do, get the candidate free of a delay.   

This is the real world of grown up crowd control, and now someone is claiming it is a criminal act.  If this is a criminal act then there is no safe harbor anywhere and every person who jostles or bumps into anyone anywhere, any handshake, any pat on the back, could be later defined as unwelcome,  then by definition "criminal', and people could start demanding you be fired from your job or put in prison, marriage destroyed, bankrupted,  life destroyed.   On the basis of an accusation, for doing your job of getting your candidate to his next event in one piece.   There is no stopping it.  Political correctness has gone amok, Trump says.   

Trump has found a sympathetic audience.

Hillary Clinton has a hazardous matchup for Trump on this issue.   Hillary's coalition of the discriminated against, women, Blacks, Hispanics, etc., position her inevitably as a defender of victims.   Part of Trump's appeal is that he is pushing back against that notion, saying people are crying "victim" too quickly.   

If this case goes to trial Trump may well get to testify and he could come away looking like the truth teller.   But it may depend on what people decide they see on the video tape.   Maybe people see a criminal act.  If they do, then Trump loses.

Did you see what you would define as a criminal act?