UC Berkeley's Professor Rumor (Robert Reich)

Marinus Van Der Lubbe in court
Was he hired by Breitbart?

Eighty four years ago, just weeks after Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany, the Reichstag was set on fire. (For the benefit of all you UC Santa Cruz Community Studies majors, that’s the German Parliament building.) The night of the fire, a dim-witted Dutchman named Marinus Van Der Lubbe was arrested inside the building. He was subsequently tried and executed. The Nazis blamed the Communists as having put Van Der Lubbe up to it. Although history has never definitely solved the mystery, most believe the Nazis set the fire in order to provide a justification for cracking down on their opponents, which history records they most certainly did.
Professor Rumor

Last night, UC Berkeley Professor of rumorology Robert Reich (no relation to the Reichstag) went on Don  Lemon’s CNN show to discuss Wednesday night’s riot at his campus, which forced the cancellation of conservative pundit Milo Yiannapoulos’ appearance. After being teed up by Lemon’s description of Yiannopoulos as a white supremacist, Reichstag Bob went off on a bizarre interpretation of the riot. First, he stated that he was present for part of the riot (No, he didn’t throw any chairs through glass windows-at least I don’t think so,) He stated unequivocally that those were not students doing the rioting, but outside agitators. OK, fair enough, I’m sure that was partially true, but Professor Reich carried it further. He said that he knew the UC Berkeley students. (There are approximately 38,000 students currently enrolled at UC Berkeley.) That’s a lot of people to know. Even if Reich knows all 38,000 students at UCB, in all the videos I have seen of the riots, those committing the criminal acts had their faces covered. So how in the world can he make such a preposterous statement on national television? Because he’s a UC Berkeley professor, that’s why.

But it gets better. Then Reich, in a statement that would have made Joe Goebbels blush, said that he heard rumors that the rioters were actually right-wingers trying to discredit UCB’s reputation for free speech.

I’d like to be able to report that Lemon challenged Professor Rumor on any of these points, but he didn’t. As it was, he let Professor Rumor get away with every boffo claim. I mean, he’s a Berkeley professor, right?

You know, come to think of it, I’ll bet it was those Breitbart guys who burned the Reichstag.