I generally think conspiratorial thought process are the province of cranks and folks who watch too much television. So I find it sort of alarming when people I know to be thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable, and logical start suggesting that the recent incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was staged.
I understand some of the reasons they feel that way. Let’s face it, it was a weird and improbable event in itself. Much of the apparent weirdness is compounded by the fact that most folks don’t really understand how perimeter security works or how difficult it is to shoot a moving target. There’s no reason they should have an understanding of those things. But a little clarity might help.
People keep asking how Cole Allen (I don’t know why everybody keeps calling him ‘the shooter’ since even the Secret Service agrees he never fired a shot) got through so many security personnel. Why, they ask, weren’t the security staff paying more attention? And how did the Secret Service officer firing his weapon at Cole Allen miss him?
Here’s why the security staff wasn’t paying more attention: their job was done. Once all the invited guests had been cleared and admitted into the ballroom where the dinner was taking place (one level below the checkpoint where Allen was stopped), the ballroom was made secure. The ballroom doors were closed and guarded, as were the elevators, stairs, and escalators leading to that level. At that point, the duty of security had been passed to a different team. Perimeter security is relaxed and the physical apparatus can be dismantled. It just saves time. The fact is, staff aren’t very concerned about intruders because there’s no place an intruder can go. When Cole Allen scooted through the magnetometer, he only succeeded in boxing himself in.
How did the Secret Service officer manage to fire at least four times at a target only a few feet away from him and miss? I blame this on television, which gives viewers a wildly unrealistic understanding of firearms and shooting. Hitting a moving target with a handgun is hard, even with training. The faster the target is moving, the harder it becomes (and Cole Allen was fast). Toss in the stress and adrenaline produced by an event of this kind, and it becomes harder still. Most often, you end up firing at a space the target occupied a fraction of a second earlier. It’s not all that surprising that the officer missed (well, missed Cole Allen, anyway; it seems likely he accidentally tagged one of his fellow officers).
But that misunderstanding of how the world actually works is just part of the reason folks are leaning toward the belief that the incident was staged. Another reason is that nobody trusts the current administration to tell the truth about anything. Representative democracy depends in large part on the assumption that 1) the government use of power is legitimate and 2) the citizenry can generally rely on the government to be consistent and relatively honest. Neither of those assumptions apply anymore.
It’s not just that everybody in the Trump administration lies, or that there’s no penalty for lying, or even that they don’t care if everybody knows they’re lying. Down at the bone, the consistent, pervasive, ubiquitous lying erodes the very concept of Truth or shared reality.
For a lot of folks, what actually happened at the WHCD doesn’t matter as much as what they believe might have happened.
gregfallis.com 