Nick Sandmann, a student at a Catholic high school in Covington, Ky., has been vilified far and wide based on this photo. Prominent liberals have labeled his smile a “self-satisfied smirk” that tells us all we need to know about him. Funnyman Bill Maher called him a “little prick.”
The photos above are of me through the years. The skinny kid from the 1960s was a few years younger than Nick is now.
Even after 50 years or so, I rarely smile. I smirk. Friends and family have always interpreted my personality based on that smirk. Why don’t you smile, Bill?
I had bad teeth and knew it.
Other photos of Nick indicate he might have bad teeth as well.
Could our national civic discourse be so warped that it’s driven by an interpretation of the facial expression of a 16-year-old who just needs braces?
Is it possible that a smirk and a hat could be enough to inflame political passions of millions? I wore an Army beret a few years after that early photograph of me was taken, and the venom from anti-war liberals of that era was not unlike that directed now toward Sandmann. (If confronted, I sometimes explained, “Dude, I campaigned for McGovern. I got drafted.”)
