What if the next attack on America’s leadership doesn’t come from some basement-dwelling Call of Duty “veteran” with a cheap Mossberg pump-action shotgun and a single-stack .38 Super?
What if it comes from a three- or four-man team of highly-motivated, foreign-trained combat veterans. Fighters who are experienced and built for the job? That isn’t just a hypothetical. President Trump talked about rescheduling the White House Correspondents’ dinner after it was cancelled due to an assassination attempt.
Let’s revisit that same glittering ballroom. We’re back again with the same black-tie crowd of self-important media elites and administration heavyweights at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner 2.0 in D.C. with the same velvet-rope security theater outside.
This time it could be a very different ending.
The mental lightweight amateur was stopped cold the first time around. But four trained professionals? You know America’s enemies are thinking about it after watching the near success of Mr. Call of Duty. Pros wouldn’t be livestreaming or hesitating. They’d roll up on that checkpoint locked and loaded with suppressed rifles, plate carriers, comms, and a plan honed from hard experience in real war zones.
Fire erupts. A half-dozen agents — plainclothes and uniformed — drop in moments. More follow. Hopefully one of them gets on the radio before they lose consciousness. Either way, the checkpoint collapses. There’s sudden chaos at the doors as the Team Bad Guys breaches before most people even realize that shots had been fired.
The President. The Vice President. Cabinet members. Top administration officials. All in a room full of champagne flutes, potential wine thieves and puffed-up egos with near-zero warning. It would quickly become a bloodbath. The Secret Service Counter Assault Team would have a tough time arriving quickly enough.
The idea of losing a portion of the elected leadership of the United States to a competent foreign hit squad in the heart of Washington should terrify every American who still believes in a constitutional republic.
The Correspondents’ Association dinner isn’t some random event. It’s a high-profile symbol packed with some of the most protected people in the country. Yet one disorganized, grabastic piece of amphibian fecal matter with not-so-fancy guns has proved that the perimeter can not only be probed, but damn near breached. Given the same set-up, a real four-man professional team would punch straight through and do their best to complete the mission.
Security measures have undoubtedly been reviewed and upgraded since the embarrassing incident. Let’s hope so. But more fences, more badges, and more “see something, say something” signs won’t cut it against operators who train to defeat exactly those measures.
You’d think that lessons would have been learned after the Butler shooting. It’s hard not to think that the Secret Service was incredibly lucky this latest attempt went the way it did. But betting the security of our top government officials on luck isn’t much of a plan. If the dinner is, in fact, rescheduled, it will be interesting to see what adjustments are made.