One moment was utterly familiar: The massive ballroom at the Washington Hilton was filled with an indistinct buzz from thousands of mostly inconsequential conversations all blended together across a sea of hundreds of tightly packed tables, just like always happens before the formal program gets underway at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. The next moment was utterly bizarre: Women in gowns, men in tuxes, nearly everyone in the place crouching down on the floor as the ballroom turned quiet. When people tentatively lifted their gazes to survey the room we saw men with machine guns standing at the head table where President Donald Trump had been and cabinet secretaries being escorted by agents one-by-one out of the giant hall. The juxtaposition of those scenes may suggest a sudden, piercing realization of terror. Perhaps some in the room did experience it that way. For my part, and I sense for others around me, that’s not quite how it felt as the incident unfolded. The sensation instead was something akin to the blurred in-between zone of consciousness when a phone call awakens you in the middle of the night. Huh, what’s happening, I’m confused, is this for real? Donald Trump told reporters when he returned to the White House that the shots fired just outside the ballroom sounded to him like a food tray dropping. Yes — a good way of putting it. In my case, the noise was on the periphery of awareness, not enough to cause a jolt alarm or even to interrupt my conversation. (Others on the POLITICO team heard them clearly.) What happened next took place within seconds but seemed to unfold slower than that in my mind. The subconscious instinct to assume normal order was overcome by cognitive recognition that something definitely abnormal was underway. People were ducking on the floor. C’mon, I wondered, is that really necessary? The sight of agents with guns brandished made it clear that joining colleagues on the ground was in fact a good idea.Once there, my thoughts were dominated first by a question: What the hell is actually happening? Then came a journalist’s instinctual reaction: Whatever the answer is, the president just got rushed out of the event, this is a big damn story. Many colleagues while crouching on the floor lifted their phones above their heads to record the scene. At no time during the episode did I perceive… [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 days ago
