The Washington Post was, appropriately enough, one of the first papers to report a move by a D.C. city government committee calling for, among other things, the renaming, removal or recontextualizing of, among other monuments and memorials, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

And now WaPo is helping the Democrats desperately spin the fallout. The problem begins with the headline.

In latest Trump-Bowser fight, Republicans accuse D.C. of wanting to relocate the Jefferson Memorial – Washington Post

This is a Republicans pounce headline. The actual proposal is there in black and white.

“Recommendation: Using the Mayor’s position on the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission, recommend the Federal government remove, relocate, or contextualize the following assets:”

The list includes the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

But the WaPo spin focuses on quoting Democrats who describe the proposal as politically inconvenient or treat it as some Republican smear.

Two Dems are quoted who blatantly treat it as a problem only because it threatens the election.

1. Still, she believes Bowser should have waited to publish the report until after the presidential election, rather than give Trump another reason to attack the city.

2. “Democrats need to keep their eye on the ball and not say things that are, on balance, a loser when everything is on the line,” said the strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

This is the equivalent of the Biden pivot to opposing riots. And then there’s the, “Whom are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate to Congress, said it is ludicrous to believe, as some members of Congress purported to, that the committee wanted the marble monuments on the Mall relocated or torn down.

Those, surely, were ones the committee wanted to “contextualize,” she said, perhaps with a plaque describing how the Founding Fathers also were enslavers.

Purported. Surely.

Journalism dies in darkness.

It’s not a matter of belief. Nor does anyone purport to believe it. The report specifically called on Mayor Bowser to “remove, relocate, or contextualize” the Washington Monument. It didn’t specify which, meaning it left it to her discretion. Two of the three options were destructive, literally or figuratively. If the report had meant to recommend recontextualizing, it would have done so. 

Norton is spinning desperately and the Washington Post is helping her do it.

“I think this notion of deliberately mischaracterizing what the mayor’s report says is a creature of the times. Because no sane person would call for removing the Washington Monument, she said.

Good thing the Post does all that fact-checking in this post-truth society.

The report states, “”Recommendation: Using the Mayor’s position on the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission, recommend the Federal government remove, relocate, or contextualize the following assets:”

No sane person would lie about what’s right there in black and white. But there aren’t too many sane Democrats in politics or the media.