We should break this down carefully, just like one of those respected joUrnALisTs working at an elite national publication would because we want to get the story straight.

Charles P. Pierce is an idiot.

Okay, I think I might have jumped the gun there a bit. Let's start at the beginning. Here is the headline from a piece Pierce had published as a blog post on the Esquire magazine site on Wednesday. (Original version here, more on that at the end.)

Catchy, and lines up with the narrative that the January 6th riot at the Capitol was an act of white supremacy based on the indisputable fact that we were told it was.

Pierce underlined the point with a subheadline, even engaging in a bit of mild language to underscore the point.

The righteous fury! The fiery indignation!

What a rush!

Why, just look at the avatar he uses which in no way is to be mistaken with a smug elitist who isn't half as smart as he thinks he is.

On to the article!

It's hard to know where to file this story from Politico. Does it go in the ever-expanding Incompetent Policing file, or in the already overstuffed It's Good to Be White When You're Criming file? I'll have to work on that.

"I'll have to work on that."

Yes. Yes you will.

Pierce quotes extensively from Politico, focusing on riot suspect and presumed white supremacist Mark Ponder.

Among the many lingering questions about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is the absence of immediate arrests of many of the most violent figures in the mob. Wednesday's filing hints at an answer: Officers were so outmatched, prosecutors say, that they simply couldn't hold detainees while they were needed for riot control. "While the officers are standing with Ponder waiting for transport, Ponder verbally engages with other nearby rioters saying 'I will say this. When our country is being attacked with, like we are, we have a right to fight…that is what the Second Amendment was built on,'" according to the FBI affidavit supporting Ponder's arrest. "Eventually, the officers learn that transport will not be arriving for Ponder and that they are needed for continued crowd control. At that point, they inform Ponder that he will be released."

Pierce weighs in with his own piercing (see what I did there, and yes I apologize) intellect:

—but it's impossible to imagine this kind of scenario if the detainee were Black.

Akshually...

Not so impossible.

In fairness to Pierce, he'd have had to read the Politico story rather than skimming it for opportunities to virtue signal righteous outrage and click through to the criminal complaint that clearly demonstrates that Mark Ponder was not at all white.

That was just one of 11 total pictures, 9 of them making it clear that Ponder was in fact black.

This guy was a rioter who, while he was in custody, was cheering on other rioters and, because they were short on vehicles, they let him go? George Floyd's family must love stories like this.

Such a short piece, and yet so, so wrong. Wrong in its premise, wrong in its facts, wrong in its conjecture.

Incidentally, he's the author of four books, the last one in 2010, titled,

"Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free"

Well, he's the expert!

Addendum:

Yeah, they finally updated the story. New and improved headline!

They included this at the top of the story:

Editor's Note: We made an incorrect assumption about the race of the suspect in the original version of this post. The story has been updated. We apologize for the error.

"Updated." A lot. No more "white" or "black" or snarky "George Floyd" references. In fact, the entire premise is gone.

This is not an update. It's an entirely different story.

No problem, they're the gatekeepers, after all.

The original version, for your reading pleasure courtesy of the Wayback Machine.