With conspiracy theories and rumors swirling around the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty — who was there when everything went down — expressed sympathy for those speculating that the horror was "staged" — because his first reaction was "it's a stunt."
But, he wrote, he's now certain the attack by alleged gunman Cole Thomas Allen wasn't staged. Indeed, the truth is even worse.
"In its immediate aftermath, I wrote about the jaw-dropping security blunder I had literally walked into: Allen had slept in the next room to me the night before. He had allegedly brought his shotgun, handgun, and knives into the hotel unchecked. He wrote his manifesto on the other side of the wall from me in his room, 10237," he wrote.
Those believing this incident was staged, he wrote, are right to question how all that was possible, when the president of the United States is one of the most securely guarded people in the world.
"It will be impossible to prove to some people that what happened was true, and not staged," he wrote. "And yet, the more I thought about what I’d seen and heard, the more this 'staged' narrative ceased to make sense. No stunt would be so sloppy, amateurish, and chaotic. No stunt would leave Trump and those around him looking weak, old, and — some of them — terrified. No stunt orchestrated by Trump insiders would end in backbiting and recrimination inside his inner circle."
The grim reality, Dougherty continued, is that "this country is living in a toxic present of guns, gunmen, political division and violence, set in a chaotic and often failing governing class, topped off with years of good reason to be cynical about everything the current president says. Nobody needs to 'stage' this. It is not — to use my own words — a stunt. It was simply one moment when that toxic combination could be seen in all its ugly colors."
"That’s not a conspiracy," he concluded. "It’s a condemnation."