Way back in late October, I wrote that I did not expect that Kyle Rittenhouse would be convicted for his killings in Kenosha. Bias in favor of white men with guns and the murky circumstances prevailing in civil disturbances made it likely that the young man would walk. And so events played out.
But I wondered what Rittenhouse might do after acquittal:
... will Rittenhouse lend his celebrity as an acquitted killer to the white nationalists who have defended him? Or might he have the decency to slink off and do some growing up in obscurity? If the judicial process is unable to name the reality of what went down, that's the best we can hope for.
I am more than a little shocked to learn that, despite a turn on Tucker Carlson's Fox News hate-fest and a visit to Mar-a-Lago, Rittenhouse seems to have been freed by the verdict to express remorse. On the podcast “You Are Here” on the right-wing network the Blaze, Rittenhouse had this exchange:
“Congratulations,” [host Sydney] Watson said Monday to Rittenhouse. “Good job, you.”
Rittenhouse, 18, responded that the killings were “nothing to be congratulated about.”
“Like, if I could go back, I wish I would never have had to take somebody’s life,” he said.
“Well, hindsight being 20/20, probably not the best idea to go down there,” Rittenhouse said. “Can’t change that. But I defended myself and that’s what happened.”
... Responding a listener’s question, Rittenhouse also said on the podcast that he plans to destroy the rifle he used in Kenosha.
“You’re not going to, like, sell it?” Watson asked, suggesting to Rittenhouse that he could make a lot of money.
“We’re just having it destroyed,” Rittenhouse reiterated. “I think that’s the best thing, and that’s what I want to do with it.”
He's obviously been well coached that, even though he has been acquitted, he must continue to claim he fired his AR-15 in self-defense. But it seems just possible that he'd like to retreat out of the glare of publicity and just have a life. That's no comfort to people who cared about the two men dead and one maimed. Maybe he's conning us all ... but maybe it shows more moral and intellectual balance than I expected.
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Note to San Franciscans -- it was great to see that the byline on this story from the Washington Post credited Julian Mark, until recently a stalwart reporter at Mission Local. Good move for Mr. Mark.
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