As you probably heard, when the George Floyd riots engulfed Atlanta recently, people caused a significant amount of property damage to shops, vehicles and local infrastructure. One other victim of the unrest was the home office of CNN, which wound up with broken windows and graffiti sprayed on the walls. With the unrest continuing, it seems that the cable news network has suddenly seen the light and determined that their building needs a bit more protection. So, like any normal enterprise, they put up a wall to keep the riffraff away from their pristine structure. Our Townhall colleague Julio Rosas captured some pictures and the New York Post couldn’t resist a bit of snark in pointing out the obvious hypocrisy on display.
CNN has discovered a new appreciation for walls.
The CNN Center in Atlanta added some imposing metal fencing after their building was attacked during violent protests after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
Photos of the new barriers were posted to Twitter Friday by Townhall reporter Julio Rosas.
On May 29, a storm of protesters descended on the building, smashing windows and cheering. They were given a boost a day later by rapper Killer Mike, who called out the network in a press conference.
CNN has put up a fence outside its HQ after the building was attacked during the riots in Atlanta a few weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/Mdabg9qmiM
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 19, 2020
Who would CNN need to worry about to the extent that they felt the need to put up a wall around their building? Surely it couldn’t be the “peaceful protesters” that they reminded us about at every turn while blaming all of the looted stores and Molotov cocktails on “outside agitators.” Perhaps they heard that the Nazis were on the march again. Or possibly the extraterrestrials. (Spoiler alert. If that’s the case, you’re going to need a much larger wall.)
Wait a minute. Weren’t we all supposed to accept the idea that walls are bad? I’m sure somebody told me that at some point. In fact, I’m almost positive that a number of people told us that and several of them work at CNN. I suppose this is the structural security equivalent of saying that a liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet. (Not that I expect CNN to change their tune when it comes to the southern border wall.)
That’s not the only example. I’ve lost track of the number of liberals I saw chuckling on Twitter because the White House decided to add additional fencing around the property during the riots. Of course, that’s not really an exact parallel, is it? The difference is that the current President has never had a bad thing to say about walls. One could argue that he owes his presidency, at least in part, to his support of walls.
There is still no excuse for the destruction of public or private property when people are supposedly just speaking up about the issues of the day. That turns a protest into a riot instantly. And CNN’s property deserves the same protection under the rules of law and order as anyone else. But that won’t stop some of us from owning up to a brief chuckle over the optics of all this.
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