Even as fires raged and consumed Notre Dame uncontrollably before the crying eyes of the world, the narrative was being carefully constructed in its newsrooms. Had to be an accident, most likely. Just one of those things, probably. Renovation work was going on, dontcha know. There must have been a spark in the attic and, whoosh, Notre Dame was aflame.
Maybe that is exactly what happened! However, there was something doubly nightmarish about watching not one, but two Fox anchors (Shephard Smith, Neil Cavuto) prevent guests from discussing a spate of recent attacks, including arson, on Catholic churches in France lest some logical discussion of the possibility that we were looking at an epic attack of anti-Catholic or anti-Christian arson might ensue -- and you know where that goes. Given what we have all been through as veterans of the jihad, lo, these nearly 18 years, it is the pathetic height of absurdity to try to stop a rational being from wondering whether there is an Islamic connection to the burning of Notre Dame -- amid all of the other possibilities, including criminal negligence on an epic scale. Maybe Pierre the Electricien went off duty after a hard day's work renovating Notre Dame today, lit a Gauloise Brune, and tossed his match into some 17th century Gazettes de France heaped on the 13th century floorboards in the medieval attic -- and the rest is tragedy. But maybe not.
The MSM can bring the conflagration "live" into our lives, burning a new scene of the last days of the West into our consciousness, but they won't let us process it outside of their politically planted poles of "thought." Inside their televised "safe space," analysis is politically correct, sharia compliant, and led not by any sort of enquiring minds, but by functionaries following the playbook they were handed down from the front office.
This blinkered, choked approach is what makes a person despair of finding the truth. Certainly, these "journalists" are not going to be the ones to search for it. This is why if they tell us again and again that it was all just an accident, they may be correct, but they will not be believeable.
Two items that caught my eye today, which I post for the record since I can't trust the MSM to take proper care of them.
The first is a tweet by Christopher J. Hale. Who is Christopher J. Hale? He is a Time magazine columnist and Fox News Democratic [sic] contributor. In 2011, he was an Obama White House intern. In 2018, he ran in the Democratic primary for a Tennessee congressional seat. According to his Washington Post by-line (this guy gets around), he also co-founded the Francis Project, "which promotes the social justice mission of the Catholic Church in American politics," and he helped "lead Catholic outreach for President Obama." Not too surprisingly, he writes essays like: "I'm a White Christian Man and I'm Acknowledging My Privilege for Lent."
Get it? Hale comes from a place in politics that as a point of politics desperately wants Notre Dame to go up in flames accidentally.
Here's his tweet.
That's some big unsubstantiated rumor. I sure hope French authorities (ones who honestly want to know what happened, I should qualify) speak with Hale's Jesuit friend and check on this lead.
Hale, by the way, deleted his tweet not very long after it went up.
The second piece of information came to me in an email from Maxime Lepante, now posted at VladTepes blog. Lepante wrote that "the fire started at least in 2 different places, according to LCI, a French TV."
I asked Lepante if there was a link to this shocking news. He replied he could not find a written report at the LCI website but that he had heard it herself on Monday at around 11pm Paris time. He also sent me a couple of links to others on Twitter who had heard and tweeted the same information.
A Belgian news site, DH.BE, picked up the LCI report as well, writing: "Selon LCI, deux foyers d'incendie auraient été repérés." According to LCI, two fires were reported.
Two fires -- two "accidents"?
Will we ever learn what really happened?