“What’s going on here?” Good question: even more appropriate than usual. Who started this ethics mess may never be known, but who is responsible for it getting out of control is clear.
This adorable group, the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir…
based in Greenville, South Carolina, had toured Williamsburg, Virginia before coming last week to Washington, D.C., to visit key historical and governmental sites. The group was about to sing the National Anthem in National Statuary Hall when Andrew Tremel, the visitor operations manager at the Architect of the Capitol, halted them. But David Rasbach, the founder and director of the choir, told Tremel that congressional offices had granted permission for the group to perform, so Tremel relented and gave the okay. Video of the debacle, however, shows Rasbach cutting off the singers in the middle of the “Star Spangled Banner’s” fourth verse of the song. A female Capitol Police officer had directed a congressional staffer to stop the performance. Rasbach told everyone who would listen that she informed him that such performances are considered demonstrations, and that demonstrations in the U.S. Capitol are banned (as many jailed January 6, 2021 protest participants will now attest).
She also said, allegedly, that some people were or would be “offended” (by little children singing their nation’s patriotic anthem in the U.S. Capitol. You know, like in “Doctor Strangelove”: “Gentlemen. You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”).
The Capitol Police dutifully rose in defense of one of its own, saying in a statement:
“Recently somebody posted a video of a children’s choir singing the Star-Spangled Banner in the U.S. Capitol Building and wrongfully claimed we stopped the performance because it ‘might offend someone. Here is the truth. Demonstrations and musical performances are not allowed in the U.S. Capitol. Of course, because the singers in this situation were children, our officers were reasonable and allowed the children to finish their beautiful rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. The Congressional staff member who was accompanying the group knew the rules, yet lied to the officers multiple times about having permission from various offices. The staffer put both the choir and our officers, who were simply doing their jobs, in an awkward and embarrassing position.”
Oh no you don’t, said Rasbach. “That is not true—he did not lie to anybody,” the director said of the congressional staffer. Rasbach said that the female officer put her hand down, directing the staffer to stop the performance. Indeed, the video shows that the choir was not allowed to finish, as you can see at the 2:26 mark in the video below…
After he had directed the choir to stop singing, Rasbach says he spoke to the female officer and asked her, “How do you think this is going to affect these children? Their first time visiting their Capitol and then they have this disappointment.” Her response, he claims: “She shrugged her shoulders, saying, ‘They sounded beautiful, but… They can go outside and sing.”
But wait! There’s more!
Knowing a golden opportunity when he saw one, GOP Speaker of the House McCarthy contradicted the Capitol Police and backed the choir, tweeting that he had, indeed, approved of the performance. “Just learned kids were interrupted while singing our National Anthem at the Capitol. Unacceptable. These children were welcomed by my office because your Capitol is back open, particularly for school groups,” he wrote, even as the battle of the debt limit raged on.
“Oopsie! Never mind!” quoth the now embarrassed Capitol Police. “Although popup demonstrations and musical performances are not allowed in the U.S. Capitol without the proper approval, due to a miscommunication, the U.S Capitol Police were not aware that the Speaker’s Office had approved this performance,” the agency said. “We apologize to the choir for this miscommunication that impacted their beautiful rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner and their visit to Capitol Hill.”
Who should you believe?
Nobody.
1. I have had enough experience with show biz and musical types to know that a choir director deciding on the fly to have a group of kids perform the National Anthem in the Capitol without permission to give them a thrill and because he had full confidence that nobody would have the guts to stop them is far from unlikely. I know this because I have made similar gambles in my dark and checkered past.
2. It is quite possible, even likely, that the female officer, who now denies it, was told that people were offended. No account I have read mentions it (an ETHICS ALARMS EXCLUSIVE!) but the children had just finished singing the seldom heard third verse of the anthem, which includes the controversial line…
“No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave…”
There was just enough time for some woke hireling to be triggered and complain to the officer, leading her to tell the staffer to have Rasbach end the performance in the middle of Verse 4.
3. The Capitol Police did themselves no favors by appearing to lie themselves about the choir being permitted to finish the performance. They obviously also felt that they had to close ranks around the beleaguered officer who stopped the singing. Then, if McCarthy was not telling the truth, it also had to take one for the team and take the blame. A “miscommunication” on such a matter seems unlikely, since every day the Speaker’s office communicates with the Capitol Police regarding events at the Capitol.
4. Would McCarthy lie about giving the group advance permission? Of course.
However, the one most egregious miscreant in this multi-layered disaster is the female officer, even though she may have been properly enforcing existing policy. I suspect that Capitol Hill Police Chief Tom Manger will be explaining this to her soon if he hasn’t already. (Tom is a long-time friend.) There are times, especially when politics and patriotism are involved, that you have to think, de-escalate, and avoid inevitable conflict. “Children singing the national anthem in their Capitol is not a threat to anybody,” Rasbach told reporters. That’s what he was probably counting on when he started conducting; it’s what the typical American will think when he or she hears about the incident, and it is what the police officer should have thought about before she triggered the controversy. Instead, she turned innocent children into victims (they were already pawns) and put the Capitol Police in an impossible position while denting their credibility at a time when they are still under a metaphorical microscope.
Good job, everybody!
Ethics Alarms 
“ However, the one most egregious miscreant in this multi-layered disaster is the female officer, even though she may have been properly enforcing existing policy.”
I disagree. I think it was Rasbach.
“ I have had enough experience with show biz and musical types to know that a choir director deciding on the fly to have a group of kids perform the National Anthem in the Capitol without permission to give them a thrill and because he had full confidence that nobody would have the guts to stop them is far from unlikely.”
On the fly? Maybe, though I am skeptical that the kids would have practiced the WHOLE song if there were not some planning ahead of time. But, if he was counting on nobody having the guts to stop him from doing something he knew, should have known, or simply suspected might be against the rules, he is the person to set this whole fiasco in motion. If he really did not have permission (and it is hard to say whether that is the case, given McCarthy’s intervention, he should not have been indignant.
If he really did not know it was against the rules, he should have simply said, “Ooopsie, my bad, carry on!” The kids could still get a good laugh out of it all. It needn’t ruin their day. And, if he was trying to pull a fast one, the kids still got the thrill of being naughty, even if they did get caught.
Of course, that does not excuse the lying on the part of the police that followed this incident, but their lying does not change the fact that Rasbach set this whole mess in motion.
-Jut
Agreed. Trying to bend the rules without permission because you know the individual or organization involved don’t want the bad PR stemming from enforcing the rules seems unethical to me. It’s a bad example to set for the kids. If the capitol police are under greater scrutiny after January 6, letting the group stay without permission could have cost her her job. That may not mean much to the rest of us, but it would to her.
Is there a rationalization for what Rasbach may have done? The “They Wouldn’t Dare” dodge, a variation of the “Do You Know Who I Am?” Excuse, maybe?
That’s assuming he did this deliberately.
They may have practiced the whole song because they had permission to perform it from the Speaker. I lean towards them having permission (or believing they had permission) since that is what the choir director told the operations manager at the beginning.
If it were me, I wouldn’t say that I had permission if I didn’t because I would assume they had a printout of the groups that were told they were allowed to perform or do something that takes up space and time in the Capitol (because that’s how I would run it to control the flow of people and make sure it doesn’t get jammed up with multiple groups wanting to do their thing although I don’t know why I think it should be run more efficiently than any other part of the government.)
I accept the possibility that he’s a bolder liar than I am, but we really don’t have evidence either way.
I’ll bet my head that somebody did tell the poor cop that the song (third verse) offended them, and the cop was told, “Just deny it. We do not want to open that can of worms, and have people say that the Capitol Police shut down the National Anthem in the Capitol on the grounds that it was offensive.”
I suspect the officer got the order from her supervisor to end the performance. Around the 2:10 mark, she is seen talking on the phone, then pulls the staffer’s jacket and tells him to cut off the performance, which he does. But, what a PR mistake. I get the “if I let you do it, then all sorts of chaos will break out” position of the rule but there are a ton of people watching and video taping the performance. The police should know that every little thing they do will be caught on camera, and many are there with hands over their hearts in a display of respect and patriotism. All around failures by everyone involved, though I am going to excuse the choir because they probably had no idea there is a rule against performing there. If the choir director knew the rule, and decided to do it anyway, then he is a cretin for putting kids in that situation. If not, he is incompetent because he should have known the rules. If Speaker McCarthy did, in fact, give permission – which is his right as Speaker – then the egg belongs on the face of the police.
jvb
I think there’s at least a possibility that Rasbach did receive permission to perform there, regardless of how unlikely that is. There’s even the slim possibility that he organized it with McCarthy. Heck, while we’re delving into what-ifs, there’s even a chance that McCarthy set the Capitol Police up by granting permission to the choir and then not communicating it to the police.
I’m not convinced any of that matters.
Because even if the police are telling the complete and honest truth, they’re still a public facing service with public relations and optics to worry about. I honestly would have a hard time scripting something designed to look pettier than this without reaching into the absurd.
Those students were basically done. The message could have been “Finish the song and wrap up. We’ll have words after.”
Exactly!!!
Did the officer-in-question decide to shut down the performance on her own volition, or did someone send her forth on that mission? If she stumbled upon it, maybe her consulting with her supervisor (this is not analogous to the officer in TX who wouldn’t shoot the guy with the gun at the school) on whether it was worth the possible blow back… “Hey, Sarge, there are kids singing over here… maybe you should drop by.” At least she would have taken the monkey off her back and planted in on the Sergeant’s (local vernacular in my former agency). That’s why Sergeants get the big-bucks, or so I’ve been told…
Does this come as a surprise, in a world where the Smithsonian throws groups out for wearing pro-life hats? The only reason Washington didn’t get torn apart in 2020 is that most of the works of art are too big to move or damage much and there are too many federal agencies that were ordered into action against the George Floyd foolishness.
Make no mistake of it, Washington DC is the city of the deep state. The majority of people working for most of these institutions, whoever the political leadership may be, are Democratic apparatchiks who only work up to capacity when their party is in charge and do everything possible to hinder the other party and everything associated with it. That includes obvious old-fashioned patriotism, which they once might have considered quaint, but which they now consider dangerous and racist. I’m mostly white children’s choir from South Carolina singing the national anthem with all verses? Unquestionably offensive. The problem, of course, is that saying that openly, as you pointed out, opens a can of worms they aren’t ready to open yet.
List of non-surprises:
1. That a choir director would take a shot and sing the anthem in the Capitol without permission, daring anyone to stop them. As I said, I would have done it (once).
2. That there is a rule against such things without permission.
3. That this might not have occurred to the choir.
4. That the “slave’ reference in the third verse would guarantee a complaint.
5. That the police officer moved to enforce the rule without considering the backlash.
6. That the thing was videoed, and the cop didn’t consider THAT.
7. That, on the fly, she revealed that someone was “offended” by the anthem.
8. That the choir director and the organization’s head went to the conservative media.
9. That the Capitol Police closed ranks and supported their own, knowing she had screwed up but initially denying it.
10. That McCarthy “pounced.”
I was surprised that the Capitol police didn’t check the video before claiming that the group had been allowed to finish their performance. That was sloppy and stupid.
Bullseye. This was a tailor-made ethics trainwreck.
The choir should have broken out in song of our Segregationist (Yet Inclusive) National Anthem: Lift Every Voice and Sing.
Then racism could also be a part of this story.
I nearly included this in the post…
My reliably Democrat sister, agreeing that it was complete botch by the Capitol Police, added that it was a shame that “the Right” had appropriated patriotic symbols like the flag and the National Anthem. I was, as they say, triggered.
“Appropriated”? The Left—including the Democratic Party—abandoned them. Who burned flags? Who applauded the NFL players protesting the National Anthem? Who has argued that GU university has to change its nickname from “Colonials”? Who is arguing that the Founders were racists, or that we need a “Black National Anthem”? It is entirely your end of the spectrum that claims that the United States, and thus its symbols, represent racism and oppression. The GOP and the Right picked up the flag and the other symbols after your pals trashed them. That’s not “appropriation.”
She was left humina-huminaing the standard fall back, “Not ALL Democrats support those things!” Yeah, but NO conservatives do, sis.