Krull
Sometimes, even a joke can become a menace.
That is what has happened with U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama. Her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address provoked guffaws from the moment she delivered it.
The setting—in her kitchen—and her histrionic delivery were so laugh-inducing that even “Saturday Night Live” struggled to parody it. Actress Scarlett Johansson’s depiction of the senator’s performance was less a caricature than a note-by-note re-creation of the original talk.
But then it turned out that there was a more serious problem with Britt’s funny little speech.
She played fast and loose with the facts.
She told a story about a young girl who had been captured by a cartel, raped repeatedly and then sex trafficked. Britt laid this horror story at Biden’s feet, implying strongly that the traumatic events took place because the president hadn’t taken a tough enough stance on border security.
It turned out, though, that the assaults and the trafficking didn’t occur during Biden’s presidency. They happened from 2004 to 2008, when George W. Bush—like Britt, a Republican—was in the White House. They also took place not on U.S. soil but in Mexico.
Worse—for Britt, that is—the young woman who had been raped and trafficked contradicted key parts of the senator’s speech.
Britt left the audience with the impression that the young woman had confided in her. In fact, Karla Jacinto Romero talked with a group of American politicians and even had testified about her experience before Congress in 2015, long before Britt became a senator or traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border.
What’s even more troubling is that Jacinto said Britt exploited her pain to try to score political points.
“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair,” Jacinto told CNN.
One would think, at this point, that Britt would backtrack.
If so, one would be mistaken.
Rather than say she had misspoken, Britt went on Fox News—where else?—to say that she was the true victim of the tale. People were picking on her, she argued, because she was a conservative woman talking about sex trafficking and they wanted to prevent her from combatting that evil.
There are at least three things that are disturbing about Britt’s response.
The first is a question: Does she really think that anyone besides the sex traffickers themselves—liberal, conservative or moderate—wants to defend that noxious practice?
Does she truly believe any American with a moral compass objects to her condemnation of this horrid exploitation of young women and children?
If so, she is delusional.
Second, if she genuinely wants to end sex trafficking, wouldn’t determining the truth about the crime be an effective way to start? Most problems cannot be solved unless there first is an honest assessment of their scope and nature.
The fact that Britt seems less concerned about telling the truth—or showing Jacinto even a modicum of respect and consideration—suggests that battling sex trafficking isn’t the senator’s primary objective.
She seems to care more about excoriating Joe Biden than she does about treating Jacinto’s suffering with the dignity it merits.
This brings us to the last and perhaps most important concern.
One of the few people who lauded Britt’s speech was former President Donald Trump.
It figures.
If there ever has been an avatar for truth-free political posturing, it is Donald Trump. For him and his followers, what they believe is far more important than what actually is the case.
If the truth and their fantasies come into conflict, in their world it is always the truth that must give way.
Thus, they can believe that Joe Biden should be held responsible for offenses that took place 15 years before he became president—and in an entirely different country.
This contempt for the truth is an assault on the idea of America itself.
Our nation is a product of the Enlightenment, an era animated by a belief that people could govern themselves if they were free to pursue the truth.
The truth was the goal because it was the thing that would make us free.
What Katie Britt and Donald Trump argue, though, is that the truth doesn’t matter.
They might as well say that freedom doesn’t matter.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Send comments to [email protected].
