Lessons From the Correspondents’ Dinner

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For a few minutes on Saturday, journalists and Washington celebrities attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner had a chance to feel what it’s like to be under hostile fire from an unknown gunman. It’s safe to say that no one liked the experience. 

The remarkable thing, considering that the room was filled with journalists, is that hardly anyone made an instant comparison of their own emotional reaction to the thoughts that must have been running through the minds of millions of Iranians and Palestinians as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rained hellfire and damnation on them during “Operation Epic Fury.” 

Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt during the attack on the Correspondents’ Dinner, but the same cannot be said for the US-Israeli-led action in the last few months. When a direct hit from a US ballistic missile killed over 100 school girls at the Shajereh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, their deaths were brushed aside as little more than regrettable collateral damage, the result of a Pentagon targeting error. 

The Trump administration had dissolved the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence that was supposed to double-check targets, because our “secretary of war,” Pete Hegseth, felt that the military was acting too cautiously out of concern for civilian casualties. Empathy is not a strong suit in Washington these days.

When one’s own life is on the line, the situation looks quite different. The White House, not surprisingly, denounced the attack at the Correspondents’ Dinner as driven by hatred of the American system and the uncompromising rhetoric of the Democratic Party. The president immediately twisted it into yet another argument in favor of his widely opposed and wildly unpopular plan to attach a gargantuan ballroom to the White House. 

There is no question that Cole Tomas Allen, the normally mild-mannered gunman who tried unsuccessfully to break into the dinner, intended to cause harm. He wielded a shotgun, a pistol, and three knives and ran through a magnetometer. He then fired the shotgun down the stairs leading to the ballroom where the dinner was held. 

The agents fired multiple bullets at Allen. None hit him, but in the confusion, he toppled to the ground and was quickly restrained. The real terror at the dinner came from SWAT teams brandishing submachine guns and looking for possible targets among the audience of reporters and celebrities. The fear the crowd experienced was real.

The question now is: What was Allen, who referred to himself in social media posts as “Cold Warrior” and “Friendly Federal Assassin,” really trying to accomplish? Allen had sent a note to his family 10 minutes before the failed assault, explaining what he intended to do. His parents immediately informed the FBI. 

The note, referred to by the press as a “manifesto,” was difficult to find on the internet, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt admonished reporters for bringing it up. The note is well worth reading. 

Far from filled with hatred, the first half of the note consists of no less than six apologies to family, friends, and acquaintances for having “abused their trust” and having lied in order to carry out the doomed plan.

Allen then gives a somewhat garbled account of his reasoning. As an American, he finds it intolerable that his representatives in government are committing crimes in his name. He refers to the representative that he has in mind as a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor.” He never mentions Trump by name, but Trump assumed as much when he blurted out on 60 Minutes, “I am not a pedophile!”

The two key elements in Allen’s note are: 

1. Guilt by association. When Trump and Netanyahu bomb innocent people, they are doing so in our name. Trump is the president of the US, and as such, he represents who we are. When he commits a crime, we are all responsible, especially if we do nothing to stop him. If we remain silent, we are also criminals.
2. Anything goes when the law is shirked. Allen points out that the US is supposed to be governed by the rule of law. When the government and the justice system ignore the law, we enter a period in which anything goes, including assassination. 

Although Allen’s note seems logically organized, the thinking that killing Trump would result in a more just nation simply doesn’t work. If Allen had succeeded in killing Trump, Trump would have become a martyr, and we would be in a worse pickle than we are today. Political problems are rarely solved by assassination. If someone had explained that to Trump and Netanyahu before they assassinated Iran’s top leadership, we might have a better chance of exiting Trump’s mess in Iran. It’s hard to negotiate when there is no one left who has enough authority to compromise.

Allen’s note does not contain the language of anger; rather, it reflects a person who feels his own identity is stained, contaminated by the actions of his government. 

The bottom line is that Allen felt he could no longer bear being a “bystander to things he considered to be crimes.” While his action was both ethically indefensible and ineffective — predictably serving only to gift Trump a political boost — his distress is no doubt shared by tens of millions of alienated and infuriated Americans.

In the second half of his note, Allen is astonished that he managed to get as close to Washington’s elite as he did. He considers the lack of security “actually insane.” 

From a security point of view, the egregious error at the dinner was to have most of the US government’s line of presidential succession — the president, vice president, speaker of the House, and secretary of state — in the same room at the same time. We’ll never know whether the Trump administration had decided on a designated survivor. 

It’s an obvious mistake that the Iranians, who by now have become used to routine assassinations either by the Trump administration or from Israel, would never have made. But then the Iranians seem to be moving, perforce, toward a healthier view of government, in that they now see their leaders as managers who can easily be replaced when it is necessary, rather than figures who engage in the cult of personality.

Allen also thanks nearly everyone that he has ever met. He will likely spend the rest of his life in prison, but he seemed to know what to expect. The end of his note reads: 

Oh, and if anyone is curious how doing something like this feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.

William Dowell is WhoWhatWhy’s editor for international coverage. He previously worked for NBC and ABC News in Paris before signing on as a staff correspondent for Time magazine based in Cairo. He has reported from five continents — most notably during the Vietnam War, the revolution in Iran, the civil war in Beirut, Operation Desert Storm, and in Afghanistan.

The Text of Cole Allen’s Note

As first reported in the New York Post

Hello everybody!

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.

On to why I did any of this:

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.

Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who aren’t.

Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security

National Guard: same as Hotel Security

Hotel Employees: not targets at all

Guests: not targets at all

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Rebuttals to objections:

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.

Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack.

Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is astoundingly incompetent.)

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.

Thank you all for everything.

Sincerely,

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen

PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.

No damn security.

Not in transport.

Not in the hotel.

Not in the event.

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.

Actually insane.

Oh and if anyone is curious how doing something like this feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.