by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime Writer
The police exist to serve and protect. Not in the sense of bringing food to your table (although right about now, I could use a rack of ribs with a side of a second rack of ribs - where did I put that UberPigOut menu‽). Not in the sense of starting a round of tennis (the one sport that teaches fans what it's like to be a metronome). No, in the sense of being in the service of the public. No, not a tea service - that's what I get for writing stories at lunchtime!
So, when thousands of far right reactionaries, fuelled by the President's incendiary rhetoric (he had obviously been eating the hottest chicken right wings - where did I put that UberPigOut menu?), stormed the capitol building, where were the police?
According to images from the scene, they were ushering the insurrectionists into the building. (That still doesn't mean that they worked in restaurants, although I will admit it is becoming harder to dismiss that conclusion.)
"Those were the Capitol Police," pointed out MSNBC host Chris Carfairindrughayes. "Think of them as...hall monitors with uniforms and sidearms. The situation required a more experienced police force - the FBI, for instance. The National Guard. NCIS Fargo. Where were they?"
According to other images from the scene, the police who were supposed to be protecting the Capitol were taking selfies with members of the mob who were there to loot it. Like they were sports stars or something. (Does tennis even have stars? No matter - this isn't like that at all!)
"Nope. Those were still the Capitol Police," Carfairindrughayes countered. "They're good if you need somebody to mediate between two little old ladies who are arguing over the last Statue of Liberty fridge magnet in the gift shop. The people that were needed here were the police in riot gear, the ones who have experience dealing with mobs. You know - the ones the government sends to Black Lives Matter protests?"
Oh. Those police.
They needed permission from the Secretary of Defence to protect the Capitol Building. They didn't get it, so they were doing traffic duty. Which is kind of like being an usher of the roadways (but, honestly, I had thought we had gone past the whole restaurant thing! I have given up on finding the UberPigOut menu and have reconciled myself to eating stale Cheetohs and something that may once have been pizza).
"Would that be acting Defence Secretary Chris Siewnottmillertyme?" Carfairindrughayes demanded. "Because, you know, President McDruhitmumpf keeps all of his appointees on a short leash. So short, in fact, that when he walks them, he has to keep them in his back pocket!"
Oh, it gets better. Or, worse, depending upon your point of view. It gets [INSERT DIRECTION HERE]. Marylina Representative Steny Hoyerinfoyer called his state Governor, Larry Hoganheroics, from the secure under the desk where his Secret Service security team had placed him, pleading for him to send help. Governor Hoganheroics tried to get permission from the Pentagon to send troops to help the besieged capitol, but all he got was the message: "Hello. All of our operators are currently occupied running for their lives from an insurrectionist mob. Please hold. Your call is important to us. Somebody - quite possibly a janitor or one of the cafeteria staff - will answer your call just as soon as they have stopped fearing for their lives."
To add insult to injury, the message then faded into a muzak version of "Anarchy in the UK."
An hour and a half after Representative Hoyerinfoyer's call, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthyesque phoned Governor Hoganheroics and asked if he had a few Marylina State Guards lying around that he could spare to, you know, defend the Capitol‽" By that time, of course, offices had been trashed and the Capitol rotunda had been used as a publilc privy, but the actual police quickly cleared the rioters out of the building and created an ever-widening perimeter around it.
"That...that delay was unconscionable!" Carfairindrughayes commented. "Was the President directly involved?"
We do not know at this time. What we do know is that when the President wants to clear a peaceful protest out of a public square so that he can have a photo op at a church, he has no trouble getting National Guards when he wants them. I leave it to you to connect the dots.
"But, those dots are bigger than New Yoricknuhemwell!" Carfairindrughayes pointed out.
Readers have a plethora (more than a fungal infection, less than a thesaurus) of media options these days. No point in making it hard for them!