November 4-5, 2021

The PHTA meeting – A panegyric on Babbitt – Evening statistics

Yesterday I went to a meeting with the Potomac Heritage Trail Association.  It is gratifying to see how matters are progressing.  The counties in the area for the most part are favorable to extending the network of trails in the suburbs that surround DC.  Loudoun County is on the verge of setting up a county-wide trail similar to the Cross-County Trail that traverses the entire county of Fairfax.  Much of the route consists of segments that RS has worked out, in which effort he has allowed me to assist him.  So I will, in a small way, be associated with the trail improvements within the local area in future years. 

There has been a good deal of chatter recently about Ashli Babbitt, who, it may be remembered, was at the forefront of the attempt to batter down the door of the Speaker’s Lobby shielding members of the two houses during the riot of January 6th and who was shot in the mêlée.  There is now an attempt to whitewash the reputation of this sweet creature and to transform her into some sort of martyr for the Far Right.  It occurs to me that I have neglected my responsibilities by failing to declaim upon the occasion, for, as W. S. Gilbert says, what is life without a touch of poetry in it? I therefore hasten to repair the lapse with the following eulogy.  And if it be objected that some of the events related in this narrative sound too fantastic to be true, I can honestly assure the reader that I have invented nothing.  Here, then, is:

The Saga of Ashli Babbitt

(With Various Other Particulars of the Demonstration on January 6, 2021)

Ashli Babbitt
Had a habit
Of listening to QAnon.
They’ve a cheery
Little theory
That Donald Trump has truly won.
The two house chambers
Are stocked with traitors
Democrats, every mother’s son.
While Michael Pence has
Lost his senses,
Thereby spoiling all the fun.
The recent election 
Requires correction;
What on earth is to be done?

In this dilemma they held a conclave 
To organize a violent shock wave,
To that end alerting their numerous following
Whose myths the latter are always swallowing.
“To Washington!” they cried, all in one lump,
For the stoic philosophy of Donald Trump
Inspired them all with magnanimous pity,
Which naturally stirred them to invade the city.
Drastic measures were needed, that was plain.
Volunteers for them were not called in vain.
Plans shaped up for a great saber-rattling,
And they joyously prepared themselves for the battling.

First they produced their very own shaman,
His function a puzzler to me, a mere layman.
But present he was, dressed with horns and with hoofs –
No; with horns only (it may lead to reproofs
To confound him with the incarnate devil – 
I admit that it borders on being uncivil;
His defending counsel in after days, it is said,
Claimed he was not violent, merely weak in the head.)

Then the Oath Keepers
Each opened both peepers
To their uttermost extent
While all of the Proud Boys,
With their loud noise,
Gave their emotions a strident vent.
And members of the Eighty Percent Coalition
Issued a mild and calm admonition
To electors ratifying the votes of the nation
That consigned all to them to eternal damnation.
Divers other groups who claimed with authority
To look after the interests of the Silent Majority
Gathered in force for the upcoming rally
With a march on the streets as a grande finale.

These representatives of the long-suffering mass
Flocked in droves to DC (flying business class),
Lodged in four-star hotels the evening before
And, to fortify their spirits all the more,
Swallowed copious drafts of alcoholic beverages,
The favored resource of those who plan leverages,
And laid down maneuvers for their course to follow
On that significant day of tomorrow
And while on these plans they labored and toiled
They became what is commonly known as “well-oiled,”
Eventually falling into peaceable slumber
With pleasing night dreams of raiding and plunder.

The day dawned; they gathered upon the Ellipse,
Every trace of composure fell into eclipse
As many speakers aroused them all to hysteria
Till they quivered like patients beset by malaria.
Here Brooks urged sacrifices of their lives and their money,
Giving none of his own – which is rather funny.
Then Eric and Junior, the two elder Trump chillun,
They pointed their fingers at many a villain
Who failed to support the just claims of their father,
(Doubtless concluding it was too much of a bother),
While Giuliani, his profile like that of a wombat,
Repeatedly called out for “trial by combat.”
As the crowd grew morose and they became growly,
Most appropriately for a Donald Trump rally – 

He comes! He comes! Yes, Donald Trump himself,
The Arch-Reneger of Contracts and the Lord of Pelf!
Sumptuously attired, yet always in disarray,
That glittering sequined idol with his feet of clay,
And with heart of lead and with head of brass,
He rivets the glances of th’admiring mass.
He speaks!  And oddly, it little matters how often he
Subjects his auditors to streams of cacophony
In the form of his harsh yelping vocalization
That bids them to fight on behalf of the nation –  
By which he means himself; but no matter.
They would serve him, were he as mad as a hatter
(Which conjecture, some claim, indeed is the case;
For his frantic gestures and contortions of face
And other displays of glaring inanity
Seem scarcely compatible with pretentions to sanity.)
 “Walk down to the Capitol!” at last he cries.
“To the Capitol!” they repeat to the echoing skies.
Shouts in thousands of throats soon arose
Emphatically vowing to wreak trauma with blows
And to demonstrate their undying loyalty
To Trump, in the glory of his self-declared royalty,
Pledging to ransack upon the behalf
Of this embodiment of Pride, Lust, Greed, and Wrath.

Trump departs, first tacitly giving his blessing
To his champions’ intent of ferocious aggressing.
And forward they march, swiftly gaining momentum,
All in accordance with the man who just sent ‘em, 
To the Capitol, which now is but scantily warded,
For when Bowser urged it be properly guarded
She was told such demands were quite out of the norm
But that her request would be processed in form.
As the Pentagon solemnly deliberated
The mob pressed forward and became quite elated –
(But calling them a “mob” will infuriate purists;
I should of course refer to them as “tourists”)
These globetrotters, I say, gleefully discovered 
The Capitol to be all but uncovered.
A sparse line of troopers and an improvised fence
Were all that it boasted by way of defense 
As the stranded police were o’erwhelmed by their harriers
Little challenge had the rioters in breaching the barriers,
Soon they were besieging with vigor and zest,
And there stomped Ms. Babbitt among all the rest.

Innocuous sightseers these, though ‘tis true,
They occasionally shouted “Fuck the blue!”
As they bawled and brawled and looted and pillaged
And voided their bladders to add to the spillage
And shattered the windows and defaced the walls
And splashed blood and feces through all of the halls
And shrieked imprecations and paraded their shaman
And vowed they’d hang Pence even higher than Haman
And howled out death threats at the top of their lungs
And brandished their crowbars and pipe bombs and guns
And alighted on laptops and artwork to fleece
And slaughtered an officer and beat up police;
In short, in the course of their amiable rambles,
They converted the building to a ruinous shambles.

But over and above such pleasant diversion
Was the main objective of their gallant excursion,
For shielded by the door of the Speakers’ Lobby
Were all members of the nation’s legislative body
Whom our heroes had sentenced to punishment condign
For failing to toe the Donald Trump line.
So, with Babbitt leading as their ambassador,
They marched thereto intent on a massacre.
They pounded glass panels into numberless shards
And hurled maledictions and assaulted the guards
And they hammered and smashed down the Lobby’s front door.
In the midst of this tumult Babbitt leapt to the fore,
True to the lessons she learned from her mentoring
She proved to be adept at breaking and entering,
Vying for the honor of heading the mob
Intent on their mission to butcher and rob
When at last a beleaguered lone guardsman spotted her.
In defending the captives he aimed and he shot at her
As her spirit began, seething, to boil and bubble
Till the terminal bullet, when it gave her no more trouble.

In concluding this strictly authentic narration
It remains to supply her funeral oration
And to particularize her epitaph in full:

A brazen, vicious, traitorous trull,
A housebreaker, assailant, felon, thief,
Whose passing can come only as a relief,
Murderous in intention, treasonable in action,
Along with the rest of her perfidious faction;
Both morals and mind alike vitiated and rotten,
Done away with, thankfully, and best forgotten,
The alternative being to condemn and to curse her
As the willing witless tool of a sordid usurper. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 249,812,912; # of deaths worldwide: 5,052,463; # of cases U.S.: 47,267,705; # of deaths; U.S.: 773,747.