Hearing all the blame being heaped on the Capitol Police, I’m starting to think they weren’t so terrible on Wednesday. Yes, they let a mob break in to the building and vandalize it (mind you, it’s a building with more than 500 rooms, and who knows how many different entrances). On the other hand, no member of Congress was injured. Was it a conscious decision to let the building go and focus on the people? Had they stood up to keep the rioters out of the building, it is almost certain there would have been far more deaths, because they would have had to use force, quite probably deadly force, to keep them out.

Was the day a clusterfuck? Definitely. But are the Capitol Police villains? No, I don’t think so. I think they were overwhelmed with insufficient support which should have been called in far in advance. For instance, if the Executive Branch of the government had not exhorted those animals to go take the Congress, perhaps it wouldn’t have happened. And if the Executive Branch had authorized the presence of the National Guard to backstop the Capitol Police, those animals would not have been able to breach the bicycle rack-barricades.

The building can be repaired and cleaned; the dead cannot be brought back.