Discussing the White House Correspondent's dinner incident

 So...for those living under a rock, we had an incident yesterday at the white house correspondent's dinner. Trump normally doesnt do these things because he hates the press (the good old "lugenpresse" if we wanna make a historical comparison) for criticizing him, but he did it this year for some reason.

Anyway, some dude tried to storm the barricades and shoot the place up. Now, the security worked as intended, Trump is fine, they stopped him, and quickly evacuated Trump and his inner circle from the scene. 

Despite this, there's a lot of discussion in the media where they're treating this like a security failure. The argument is that there wasn't ENOUGH security, and OMG, THE SHOOTER WAS 15 SECONDS FROM THE PRESIDENT. As I see it, we can argue couldve, should've, would've, but my honest opinion is if secret service quickly stopped the guy, and no one was really hurt (one secret service agent took a bullet to a bulletproof vest but that's about it), that's a success. The security was successful. It worked as intended. Why is this a debate?

Well, some are saying, well, they didnt do enough. Like, a lot of it had to do with the venue. It was in a hotel. There are multiple ballrooms having multiple events. They couldnt secure the whole building because it was a public place where people were saying. They're not gonna shut down the whole hotel for this event apparently. And that led to the event being less secure. Apparently the suspect stayed on site, and put his weapons in his room. Apparently they also couldnt put multiple perimeters around where Trump was because of the way the hotel was setup. There were multiple ballrooms all having events, so they couldnt thoroughly secure the area to stop this from happening before it got to this point. Hence everyone freaking out.

One could make an argument that they shouldnt have held this at this venue. I'd agree. If this isnt safe enough, then maybe they should have put the president in an area where it was more secure. Trump is using this as an excuse to say "this is why i should have a ballroom." he could have hosted it at the white house. Yes, BUT....

Let's be honest. His ballroom idea is bad because it bypassed historical preservation of the white house. He was supposed to get approval to change it. He just did what he wanted. Because he doesnt care about rules unless they benefit him. He didnt get congressional approval, he didnt get the site looked at by historical preservationists, he just demolished the east wing and is building this monstrosity instead that looks like a massive tumor hanging off of the white house. And yeah, it's ugly too.

I'd say it's a waste of taxpayer money, but apparently it's funded by donations so...yeah. I cant criticize it on those grounds. But yeah. Either way, not a fan of the ballroom.

Some are wondering if this was a false flag to manufacture consent for his ballroom. I dont really think that, I mean playing through the logic above, the logical conclusion is it should have been held elsewhere if securing the area was so difficult. Just having an event with the president in a random hotel ball room with random people there seems....problematic. That doesnt mean this particular project is justified but it does make an argument for it, and I reached that conclusion before Trump even said it. 

Alternatively...how hard is it to find a venue where they could shut down the whole building and area around it? he spoke at how many fricking hundreds of stadiums and arenas for campaign rallies? Just plop a ton of tables down in a place like that and bring in the caterers. Ya know? Or find a different hotel with a different layout with better security. Not like there arent hundreds of swanky places in washington DC. idk. I guess if you want to argue we dont have enough security, just....look for other options. 

I will say this though. Security comes at the expense of other priorities. You have an event in a public space like this, and let's talk about what it would require to make it more secure. If you got a hotel with people staying there, more security means more scrutiny of guests. It means cancelling reservations and the hotel losing money if you wanna be extreme about it. It means more perimeters that cancel other events nearby in the same hotel. Again, means losing money for the hotel. I could see some argument for it, ya know, cordoning off an entire hotel or an entire floor to secure a space for the president, but yeah, you actually could ironically argue for the president having their own venue, or ballroom here. Not saying his current plans are good ones. Quite frankly, I'm fine with just plopping him in some abandoned building somewhere and letting them set up there. But yeah. There's an argument. 

Either way, I think we're getting way too lost in the weeds here. Rather than reflect on what his security detail did wrong, I think we should be focusing on what they did right. HELLO?! THEY STOPPED THE GUY WITH MINIMAL DAMAGE OTHER THAN A RUINED NIGHT. Shouldnt THAT be the story? I know with the Butler thing, we love to talk about what secret service did wrong. And OOOF, they messed up there. Thomas Matthew Crooks never should have been able to do what he did, and that was a glaring security failure. This, however, was a security success. They stopped the guy before he could even get to the president. And despite so many gunshots, the guy was captured alive. Bonus points there. Really professional quite frankly. Secret service deserves credit here. 

Again, rather than frame this as some massive security failure, we should be treating this as a success. The secret service stopped the bad guys with minimal damage. Yay.