Sentence fragments
The wire keeps churning out the news
THE NEWSPAPER said that more than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, and more than 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. You have to give them credit: They’re keeping quiet in prison about their peaceful sight-seeing tour, just to allow U.S. authorities to claim something about an insurrection attempt.
(If you think there aren’t any Americans who’d take that lede seriously, you haven’t been paying attention.)
Richard “Bigo” Barnett of Arkansas has been in the news this past week as his lawyers go back and forth with prosecutors before his sentencing. The Arkansas resident was part of the riot/hissy fit in Washington that day, and was pictured with his feet up in Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Mr. Barnett—do we call him “Bigo”?—was found guilty of eight charges in connection with the deadly protest and faces a maximum of 47 years in prison. We’ll find out next month—May 24—what the sentence actually is.
The parade of Americans being sentenced to prison is more than a trickle now. The wires are filled with the stories of the Jan. 6 rioters—and most of them, in court anyway, say they are remorseful. We choose to believe them. Why not? Anybody standing in front of a federal judge looking at federal time would naturally be remorseful. If for no other reason than for what awaits.
In the last week, a Connecticut man who used a stolen riot shield to crush a police officer in a doorway was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. His name is Patrick McCaughey III, and he said this in court: “I’m sorry that I conducted myself less like a citizen and more like an animal that day.”
He joins a long list of folks who wished they’d done something else that day. Anything else.
“At the time, I felt like it was this heroic American moment where ‘We the People’ were going into our House and were going to be heard,” one lady told her jury. “I basically lost all objectivity … I was just another idiot running around the Capitol.”
Other defendants have said:
“I fell for it and joined them. I regret it every day.”
“I’m just so ashamed that I was part of that.”
“I just want to say sorry to you guys for having to go through all the cases,” one told prosecutors. “I want to say sorry to the United States of America … . I wish I hadn’t believed the lies.”
“I don’t glorify my actions. I got caught up in the energy, and if I could go back and change things over, I definitely would have brought more peace.”
“It was stupid for me to do something like that. I made a very bad decision by going in that place that day.”
“I am ashamed of my contribution to the chaos of that day, and I apologize to members of Congress, all of their employees, and to the Capitol police officers that were in attendance.”
“The hardest part about this is to know that I’m to blame. To have to look in the mirror and know you really messed up. Royally.” “I take full responsibility for what I did that day. That’s not who I am. That’s not who I was raised to be.” Hmmm, since raisin’ has come up … . We have a saying in the South: That boy wasn’t raised right. It is almost the worst thing you can say about another person. Because you’re talking about the failures of his parents. (It’s almost always a “he.”) And when the opposite is suggested—that the person very much was raised right—it’s a high compliment.
We’ll have to assume these individuals were raised right, inasmuch as they can now see the damage that occurred that day, and feel shame. There are plenty of rioters who didn’t say a word at trial—or worse, showed remorse in front of the judge, only to take to social media soon after and egg on the crazy crowd again.
None of this is meant to delight in some kind of schadenfreude at the misery of these people.
It certainly isn’t meant to mitigate what they did on Jan. 6. They are lucky they haven’t been charged with sedition or treason. In another country, they might be lined up against a wall.
But when these Americans have time to look back at themselves, in sober thought, while facing the consequences of their decisions, they have a much different idea about their actions than they did that day 27 months ago. Would that we could say the same of their “leaders” in politics and certain media outfits.