Hypocrisy: D.C.'s Default Bowser

January 5, 2021

For months, Democrats have been the riot party -- the tear-down-statues, vandalize-memorials, loot-small-businesses, and burn-everything-else voice in America. In Washington, D.C. in June, fires blazed up and down the National Mall, and what was the liberal mayor's response? To send our national guardsmen packing. Now, six months later, the president's supporters are coming to town. And what is Mayor Muriel Bowser's (D) response? Send back-up!

The hypocrisy isn't a surprise -- not after a full year of Democratic officials standing by while their cities smoldered in the name of "free assembly." Vandals and criminals "bashed through windows," shattering glass along the streets of D.C., and destroying businesses -- large and small alike. The city, Bowser said at the time, was prepared for "multiple days of demonstration." But in the end, no one was prepared for the chaos in America's capital city, as her administration stood by and watched the devastation happen.

At the time, even some Democratic sympathizers were surprised. In places like the Chicago Tribune, people lamented the silent encouragement of so many state and local officials. "If gay people were pouring into bars and punching straight people, I as a gay man would speak out," Albert Eisenberg wrote. "[W]hen violence has come from the conservative side, I don't hesitate to stand against it. But it's not. There have been no right-wing groups storming campuses and flinging feces at speakers we don't like; no tea party mobs destroying property, assaulting police officers, and paralyzing our major cities; and no Republican senators calling their colleagues murderers just weeks after a political assassination attempt. From Portland to New Haven to Washington, the violence we're witnessing is largely a product of the hard Left, and the reaction from mainstream liberals -- mostly silence, dismissiveness, equivocation -- means it will continue to flourish."

Flourish it did, even as Mayor Bowser resolutely -- and inexplicably -- kicked out hundreds of Utah Army National Guardsmen from D.C. With so little warning that it caught Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy by surprise, the troops were told to "pack up and leave their hotel rooms" in downtown Washington immediately. Mayor Bowser thought their presence was an unwelcome presence while violence gripped the city.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) was shocked. "Just heard that Mayor Bowser is kicking the Utah National Guard out of all DC hotels tomorrow. More than 1200 troops from 10 states are being evicted. This is unacceptable," he tweeted. Fact checkers raced to cover for the liberal leader, insisting to Americans that Bowser wasn't responsible for the move -- which was hilarious, since she herself bragged about the decision on Twitter. "Senator -- until they are recalled home -- which I have formally requested from the President, your troops are in D.C. hotels. However, D.C. residents cannot pay their hotel bills. The Army can clear that up with the hotel today, and we are willing to help."

Fast-forward six months, as Americans stream into town to pray and march to the capital in peaceful protest of the election certification. Bowser's response is apoplectic. She's asked for 340 D.C. National Guard troops and traffic control points all across the city. Then, stoking panic about a movement whose only crime before the wild November clash has been burning a couple of Black Lives Matters flags (not tormenting an entire metropolitan area), she warns that a grave threat has come to the capital. Conservatives. "I am asking Washingtonians and those who live in the region to stay out of the downtown area on Tuesday and Wednesday and not to engage with demonstrators who come to our city seeking confrontation. We will do what we must to ensure all who attend remain peaceful," Bowser said. "We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents, or cause destruction in our city."

Actually, history shows, she will. It just depends whose side you're on.