On Monday afternoon, a 45-year-old man from Texas named Michael Marx drew a firearm and opened fire on Secret Service agents patrolling the White House perimeter near the Washington Monument. Officers returned fire and hit him. A juvenile bystander was struck by a bullet — officials couldn’t confirm whether it came from Marx or the agents’ return fire — and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
A man shot at the people guarding the White House. A child got hit in the crossfire. By Tuesday, most of your news feed had moved on.
Here’s exactly what happened. Plainclothes Secret Service officers spotted Marx near 15th Street and Independence Avenue SW, near the Sidney R. Yates building, acting as though he was armed. When uniformed officers approached, Marx fled on foot, then turned and fired at the agents pursuing him. Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn confirmed it plainly: Marx “fired in the direction of our agents and officers. They returned fire and engaged.” Marx was hospitalized. Roads around the White House were shut down. And that was largely the end of the media’s interest.
Now imagine the coverage if this had happened during the Biden administration. If a man had opened fire on Secret Service agents protecting the Obama-era White House, we’d still be hearing about it. There would be congressional hearings. MSNBC would have a special series. The shooter’s political beliefs would be dissected for weeks.
Instead, we got a paragraph and a traffic alert.
Steve Scalise was shot at a congressional baseball practice by a man who had volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ campaign. That story disappeared within days. The pattern is consistent: political violence in the direction of Republicans is “an isolated incident.” The same event pointing the other way is a national emergency requiring immediate reflection on dangerous rhetoric.
The Secret Service agents did their jobs professionally under fire. The child who was caught in the crossfire will thankfully recover. Marx is in custody.
But the selective outrage is worth documenting. The same media apparatus that treats every harsh word from a Republican as an incitement to violence can’t sustain a news cycle about an actual shooting at the actual White House perimeter. A man fired a gun at federal agents guarding the seat of American government. A kid got hit.
And somewhere, a cable news producer decided that wasn’t the lead story.
