Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen gives neo-Nazis a pass Opinion: The Homeland Security Secretary had a chance to condemn white supremacists and...didn't

EJ Montini | The Republic | azcentral.com

A journalist will occasionally lob a softball question to a government official, letting the bigwig the take a big swing and make a bold – if obvious – pronouncement that just about everyone agrees with.

That’s what happened at the Aspen Institute this week when Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was asked, essentially, to condemn white supremacists.

Racists.

Neo-Nazis.

And the secretary … whiffed.

How do you miss that?

She missed the ball completely.

The conversation revolved around the white nationalist protest that took place in Charlottesville, Va., last year, the one in which a crazed supremacist drove a car into a crowd, killing a woman. The one in which President Donald Trump actually said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander asked Nielsen if that kind of talk made her job more difficult.

Nielsen simply could have condemned the racists; simply pointed out that they don’t represent American values.

Instead, she said, “No matter who it is, I think what’s important about that conversation is, it’s not that one side is right, one side is wrong.”

Actually, one side IS wrong.

The racists.

The white supremacists.

The neo-Nazis.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ohhhh...that explains it.

The fact that the head of the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t get this or won't admit it is …

… perfectly understandable.

She was appointed by Trump.

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