Guest Post by Morbo
Remember the days when conservatives supported law enforcement? Those days are gone. Hard-working police officers are now fair game for lies and slander if it’s part of a larger kook right campaign to smear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
For the past two weeks, the Family Research Council has been sending out e-mails to its supporters blasting the U.S. Capitol Police for supposedly standing by and doing nothing while anti-war protestors defaced the Capitol Building with graffiti during the Jan. 27 march against the Iraq war. (The American Family Association also got in on the act, and some right-wing blogs picked up the claim.)
Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, noted that in the past, anyone who engaged in vandalism during a D.C. march has been arrested. He told supporters:
“This time, the Capitol police’s hands were tied because they were ordered to stand down by their Chief of Police, who answers to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). To add insult to injury, public employees had to come in on their day off, at taxpayer’s expense, to clean up the mess the protestors left behind.”
It’s all a bunch of lies, of course. Here’s what really happened: The vast majority of marchers were orderly and peaceful. Among them was a small percentage of morons who were determined to confront the police with taunts, trespass on areas deemed off limits and deface the Capitol. The police were ordered to hold the line around the Capitol Building against these pea brains. This they did.
However, a few of these suburban anarchist poseurs managed to spray paint symbols on the pavement near the building and then melt back into the crowd before anyone in law enforcement saw them. (Oooo, these anarchists are SO brave! I also wonder if they snatched lollipops out of children’s hands?)
Capitol Police Chief Phillip D. Morse Sr. pointed out in a press statement that the bulk of the marchers were peaceful and law-abiding. He noted the presence of a “splinter group” that was “seeking a confrontation with police.”
Continued Morse:
“Some members of this group did covertly mark the pavement on the Lower West Terrace during their confrontation with us. Had this been observed, I would have directed arrests to be made. However, the size and continual movement of the crowd provided concealment and made detection of their actions impossible. Once the crowd dispersed, I was appalled and disgusted that any individual, whatever their cause, would deface the grounds of the Capitol. Fortunately, due to the notable efforts of the staff of the Architect of the Capitol, their signs of disrespect were quickly washed away.”
Finally, the Capitol Police do not answer to Pelosi. They are overseen by a three-member board that consists of the architect of the Capitol, the Senate sergeant at arms and the House sergeant at arms. It took me all of five seconds to find this out on the web.
To wrap up, here’s Perkins’ scorecard on this matter: He said Pelosi ordered the Capitol Police to stand down in the face of vandals. She did not. He said the police watched but did nothing while the vandals defaced the Capitol. This is also not true. He blamed the vandalism on the marchers at large. Even the Capitol Police acknowledge it was done by members of a splinter group who were more interested in mixing it up with the cops than protesting the war. He said Pelosi oversees the Capitol Police. She does not.
Is there anything in Perkins’ message that is really true? As far as I can tell, his name actually is “Tony Perkins,” and it appears there was an anti-war march on Jan. 27 — although given Perkins’ track record, I’m inclined to check another source, just to make sure.