There’s no better way to prove your Serious Journalist bona fides, really:
If Zimmerman is telling the truth — as police evidently believe and as some witnesses reportedly confirm — this isn’t even a “stand your ground” case. It’s a straight-up case of self-defense, no matter how unwise or bigoted Zimmerman may have been in reporting Martin to police and leaving his vehicle to begin pursuing him.
If Zimmerman is lying — if he ignored the 911 dispatcher, chased Martin down and shot him in cold blood, as the Al Sharpton crowd seems to believe — it’s murder one.
Hahaha, the “Al Sharpton” crowd. The level of hate among my fellow pale folks for Sharpton (and I don’t mean sensible criticism of his past actions, I mean the disregard of any statement he might ever make just because of reasons) has never been clearly explained to me. He, like Jesse Jackson, just seems to get hauled out when it’s time to prove that one is A Real Grown-Up, like a dog whistle to the tote-bag set.
In any case, Zorn never really cites any member of whatever “the Al Sharpton crowd” seems to be saying that is so outrageous. And after denouncing a “rush to judgement” he goes on to ask readers to offer their “best guesses” of what really happened, because that’s so much more productive than the “cable TV hucksters” who have been making guesses of their own.
A.