A little sanewashing

Kelly O’Donnell, on NBC Nightly News, last night, describing human behavior at Jimmy Carter’s memorial service:

“The thirty-ninth president brought together decades of his successors, their interactions appearing to set aside conflicts and politics and personalities. One handshake ended nearly four years of no contact between former vice president Pence and the president he served.”

But if you watch, you can also see Karen Pence refusing to acknowledge that former president and his wife. If you watch a bit more, you can see George Bush walking right past that former president before giving Barack Obama a friendly pat on the stomach.

Heather Cox Richardson has it right:

Pence shook Trump’s hand; his wife stayed seated, looking straight ahead. While Obama, sitting next to Trump, spoke to him, former president Bush refused to acknowledge Trump, instead walking past him and giving a familiar greeting to Obama.

Whose interests are served by pretending that everyone is now getting along?

A more egregious example of sanewashing, from The Washington Post: a headline that refers to Jack Smith’s report on that former president’s “election-reversal efforts.” Undoing would be more accurate.