Tom Kielty

THE KIELTY KONSIDERATION - July 15, 2022

THE KIELTY KONSIDERATION - July 15, 2022

Once again, "The Kielty Consideration," is dominated by the often mind-numbing goings-on on Capitol Hill during the January 6th hearings. I recently read, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," by Michael Wolff and I am currently midway through, and "A Very Stable Genius (a term Trump used on multiple occasions to refer to himself with his frequent attribution, "That's what a lot of people call me") Donald J. Trump's Testing of America," by Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. You can't tell the players without a scorecard! There is one common thread through both books and that is by midway through the first term of the Trump administration - setting a record for frustrated resignations and fiery terminations - that absolutely nothing this lunatic is alleged to have done leading up to, on, and after January 6th came as shocking to anyone who had worked for a day with this egomaniac. At best they were likely only surprised at both the audacity of his continuing to sell a proven lie about an election being stolen and also that he found enough conspiracy nuts to agree with him.

It would all be comedic if not so terribly frightening. Almost as frightening is the number of members of his party that continue, despite his proven record of a staggering 30,573 mistruths while in office, to support him. At this point it needs to be said: being a Republic is one thing. Supporting Trump is another, and it has been proven that it likely means you are either greedy, a racist, or an idiot. Take back your party, GOP, history is not going to look kindly on this era.

But the surprising memories of these hearings for me are being reminded of my fondness for the fine men and women of the Capitol Police Force.

In the mid-90's I lived for about 9 months in Washington, DC, and dealt on a nearly daily basis with the Capitol Police Department. My beloved pal, David Stillwagen, and I worked as partners both selling and delivering Nantucket Nectars fruit juice throughout the Capitol area. The sales/distribution model that Allserve Distribution has was you were teamed with a partner, one week you made sales calls, and the next week you made deliveries on those sales while your partner worked vice versa. Stills was my partner and a major component of our territory was Capitol Hill, including the United States Capitol. Once or twice a week we were literally under the Capitol Building delivering fruit juice, along with a number of other high profile government locations like the Holocaust Museum and the Library of Congress. At the time we were hustling to make all our stops and in hindsight, I wish I'd taken the inside access I was willingly given to these incredible locations. Access provided by the Capitol Police Force.

They were absolutely great people. They got a kick out of a bunch of preppy white college grads driving box trucks around D.C. and got to know us. It wasn't all so sunny. I was driving that truck the day of the Million Man March and when I pulled into the Rayburn Office Building, I remember two African American cops who worked the loading dock shaking their heads at me. "Kielty, what the fuck are you doing here? Are you kidding me?" I just shrugged and said, "It's a Monday, Rayburn is Monday." I got out of the truck and his partner took me aside and said, "Dude, seriously, if I didn't have to be in the city today I wouldn't be, and I'm black!" I laughed. He didn't. "Seriously, hustle up that skinny white ass, and don't go near the parade route." His concern was sincere and I heeded his advice.

Six months earlier on a week in April I celebrated a birthday at likely around the same time that a few former employees of the Allserve warehouse were celebrating an inside job stealing four trucks loaded for 5AM deliveries. Delis and lunch counters around the Capitol want you early, I learned the first week they won't even talk to a delivery man between 11 and 1 and even 10:45 got you a dirty look (I also learned that first week they didn't give a damn about the "prestige" of Nantucket that sold well in the Senate and House. "What's the price point on Arizona Iced Tea?" I was asked in countless ethnic accents). They also don't give a damn about how nice your emblazoned Nectars truck looks, or if it's been replaced by a yellow Ryder rental the day after the fleet had been ripped off.

You know who does care? The Capitol Police care when the day after your truck has been ripped off is also the day after the Oklahoma City Bombing when a couple of miscreants pulled into the garage at the Murrah Federal Office Building and perpetrated the worst act of domestic terror in American history driving… you guessed it, a yellow Ryder truck. The first cop who saw me went wide-eyed. By the time I got to the security check, another cop who didn't know me immediately waved me off to the side. I was usually allowed to sit in the truck when they brought out the dogs and the mirrors to look under the truck. Not today. Finally, somebody who did recognize me walked over with his arms wide. "If this is some kind of joke, Kielty, I can assure you that it's not funny!"

The cop who I knew walked over to the one who I didn't and explained my story of our truck heist and vouched for me. They together walked back to me and my new acquaintance said, "Well, lousy night for a heist. Sorry about your trucks, just open up the back and show us the load." I did and shook both their hands and thanked them. When I was done and leaving the guy who had vouched for me, who I'd seen explaining my situation to other officers as I unloaded, waved at me and I rolled down the window and thanked him again. "Can I least offer you a case or two?" He smiled and said, "Arizona Iced Tea? I don't need your preppy piss," then laughed and told me he couldn't accept.

Those were the men and women I dealt with on the Capitol Police. The members of a police force in what I'd argue is the most important small town in the midst of the world's most important city. They were universally patient, smart, friendly and helpful. On more than one occasion they waved our truck up ahead of other trucks with smaller loads and a driver's helper in the passenger seat. They were also the men and women who took the brunt of the January 6th embarrassment to this nation, an embarrassment that could have been avoided if not for the insightful actions of a narcissist child who when repeatedly told him, "No," about winning an election assembled a bunch of would-be opportunists who thought they could benefit by telling him, "Yes." Then he put an angry mob together and ordered them directly at the Capitol Police under the auspices of patriotism. Criminal? At the very least.

According to an old adage, always leave 'em laughing. I will give the idiocy of the Trump presidency this much: without his surreally moronic fan base it's improbable I'd have ever witnessed some disciple of his testifying to Congress while wearing a Descendents (a great band) tee-shirt or discovered that the man questioning him, Jamie Raskin, had promoted a Mission of Burma show at Harvard in 1981. You just can't make this shit up. Unless of course, you believe one of the Washington Post-verified 30,573 false or misleading claims between his first day in office, on January 20th, 2017, and his final day on January 20th, 2021 (roughly 21 a day). Hilarious, isn't it?