Howie Kurtz:
Why on earth are we having a debate about the word “thugs”?
Isn’t that an utterly appropriate term for people who set police cars and buildings ablaze, loot burning stores and capitalize on an unfortunate death by destroying a community?
And given the seriousness of the issues raised by the Baltimore riots, how did this become a linguistic discussion?
President Obama complained about the “thugs” who rampaged in Baltimore after Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake complained about “thugs” as well—and was careful to spell out who she meant. She made a sharp distinction between those who protect peacefully “and the thugs who only want to incite violence and destroy our city.”
But the mayor, whose performance in this crisis might generously be described as erratic, took it back a day later.
“There are no thugs in Baltimore,” Rawlings-Blake declared. “Sometimes my own little anger translator gets the best of me.”
Non-anger translation: I took heat from the black community so I’m now disavowing my own words.
This is bullshit. Denying that this behavior is thuggish is the reason thugs in Baltimore behave as they do.
Video and more at Fox News