Everyone "Negociates a settlement" with a gun drawn

I'm embarrassed for Matt Lauer, who has pretended to be a journalist for years. 

Let's summarize: As I understand it, four US Swimmers, after their competition was over, went out drinking in the famous party city of Rio. As is common when out drinking in a party city, they went to pee at a gas station. But the bathroom was locked. Frustrated, Ryan Lochte hit an advertisement in a metal frame, which fell to the ground. A couple of the other swimmers peed in the bushes behind the a gas station. Then 2 security guards, brandishing guns and speaking Portuguese, confronted them and had the swimmers sit down in the ground. The guards then demanded money, gun in hand. The swimmers surrendered money, and were let go. Lochte & Co. then told the story of being held at gunpoint, and apparently exaggerated parts of it. The Today show went to the gas station to look for the damage...and found none. 

Today NBC showed an exclusive interview to get the humbled Lochte's reaction. Here is Matt Lauer talking down to Lochte, "And the version we're hearing now is much more about a negotiated settlement to cover up some dumb behavior." In response, Lochte says, "All we know is that there was a gun pointed in our direction, and we were demanded to give money." Lauer thinks this is just normal settlement procedures, have people sit on the floor and point a gun their way and draw up the particulars of a settlement that way. Right...everyone "negotiates" settlements with a drawn gun at them. 

Picture this in your mind: Matt Lauer interviewing a BLM protester who had vandalized a gas station. The owner of the gas station confronts the protester in the act. The owner is brandishing a gun, makes the protester/vandal sit on the floor and "negotiates a settlement to cover up some dumb behavior." In the interview setup, Lauer has the protester sitting, hat in hand, while Lauer has legs crossed and sits, leaning back, so proud of his moral preening, and chastises the protester for claiming victim hood. Nope, I can't imagine that either. 

I've had people vandalize small things in my store, in frustration, right in front of me. I did not pull out the gun in my pocket and make them pay for the small thing they just broke. Why not? Because such a response is over-the-top, and causes escalation of tensions. I'm not prepared to kill someone because they knocked an advertisement off the wall. That's thug behavior. Lauer knows this, of course. He could have easily led Lochte in an interview like this: "How did you feel, on the floor, with an agitated man waving a gun in front of you? You are in a foreign country, you don't understand the language, and you just broke a small fixture in a store, worth a couple of bucks, maybe, and now the guard is threatening to kill you because of it? How did you feel? Do you feel the Brazilians were discriminating against you because you were white?" Ok, I may have stretched it a bit in that last sentence, but I think you see the point: Lauer was reveling in holding Lochte's head held under the water, shaming him. 

Ryan Lochte has accomplished some tremendous things. He's the 2nd most decorated Olympic Swimmer in history. To be sure, Lochte should not have punched the sign, should not have exaggerated the story, and he should be embarrassed for making all of this more complicated as a result, distracting from the fantastic accomplishments USA Swimming has achieved. 

And Matt Lauer shouldn't jump on any opportunity to cover for the thug behavior of Brazilian security guards...not to mention the thug behavior of "protesters" who burn down gas stations here in the US. 

Maybe Matt Lauer's apparent comfort with negotiations done with one party having a gun in their hand and the other party sitting on the floor defenseless, is because he and #BigMedia are absolutely used to being in total control of the narrative they inject into news stories to point them in the direction they prefer. 

SHAME ON NBC and #BigMedia altogether for being such America-hating hacks. However, I don't think Lauer & Co. have much capacity for embarrassment, as they are never wrong. 

Captain's Log, Supplemental: One of my friends commented on my Facebook post of this article how Locthe is to be held to account for his bad behavior. Absolutely: To be sure, Lochte deserves criticism and consequences for his poor behavior, particularly for hiding the parts that were embarrassing for him when he retold the story the following days. We are all tempted to embellish or omit certain facts, and we all bear a cost when the facts come to light. Locthe is facing those consequences now, with his image tarnished and his endorsement contracts vanishing. Locthe's consequences are all visible. I'm raising this angle to make visible the embedded bias of the Left displayed by Lauer in this interview with the star athlete. Ask yourself: Would Lauer have asked Lochte those same questions with the same aggressive style if he were black? If not, why? I don't think it's reverse-racism by Lauer. Rather, than black/white, the motivation for Lauer and #BigMedia is about promoting their left-leaning worldview.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-rio-summer-olympics/ryan-lochte-rio-incident-i-over-exaggerated-story-n635191