Much of the media’s runup to the 2024 presidential election has consisted of moralistic hand wringing about Democracy Itself being on the line, an echo of President Joe Biden’s own talking points. However, some of us remember a not-too-distant time ago, when some of today’s loudest outlets platformed an ACTUAL insurrectionist.
This is the moment, broadcast on Univision seven years ago today, when Jorge Ramos, senior anchor and host of political affairs show Al Punto, asked Oscar Lopez Rivera whether he is comparable to Nelson Mandela. Watch as former congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) responds by comparing Lopez Rivera to George Washington:
JORGE RAMOS: Congressman Gutierrez, come compare Oscar Lopez to a Puerto Rican Nelson Mandela. Others, because he belonged to a group that placed bombs, would call him something different. How do you believe that history will remember the man (seated) next to you?
LUIS GUTIERREZ: Like Ramon Emeterio Betances. Like Eugenio Maria de Hostos. Like Jose Marti. Like all the great forefathers and heroes of the struggle for the homeland and for their nation. That is where he will be placed. Look- if this were the American Revolutionary War, the 13 colonies, Oscar Lopez-Rivera, in the London newspapers, they would have said the same things (about him) that they said about George Washington. Look, the struggle for independence is a struggle that all peoples have a right to unto themselves, and have a duty, as Oscar has said, to carry out.
Three days before the end of his presidency, President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, a convicted FALN terrorist who was serving a lengthy sentence for seditious conspiracy against the United States. Lopez Rivera was cast by the media as a kindly grandpa who was oversentenced simply for believing in the independence of Puerto Rico. As we noted at the time:
López Rivera was NOT imprisoned for believing in independence for Puerto Rico, but for the violent means through which he and others sought to further that otherwise respectable cause. Having failed to persuade their fellow Puerto Ricans to support their particular brand of a Marxist-Leninist independence, López Rivera and others sought to advance independence through bombings and other violent acts, such as the ambush of a group of U.S. Navy personnel just outside the base at Sabana Seca, P.R., which resulted in the deaths of four sailors.
(Speaking of bombings, it is worth noting that one of the sites bombed by López Rivera's FALN was the Fraunces Tavern in New York City, an historic site that once housed Alexander Hamilton's office. In what is a cruel twist of fate, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda has promised López Rivera a command performance in Chicago (presumably once he's done sobbing). Perhaps Miranda might further honor López Rivera by staging a prop bomb at any scene set at the Fraunces Tavern. But I digress.)
Not only did Jorge Ramos platform a violent terrorist who sought to overthrow the United States from a territory, but he allowed a supporter to gush over him on the air. Univision saw fit to broadcast this terrorist apologia. Fast forward to today, and the network’s editorial line on “democracy” looks increasingly hypocritical.
