OK, so those of us who have "known" the online personality known as "Jim Treacher" over the years are all surely sharing a good smirk at the news that he was randomly run over by a Diplomatic Security SUV just weeks after he arrived to Washington, D.C. to work for Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller. I mean, Treacher (real name: Sean Medlock) is a funny guy, and–minus the whole broken knee and surgery thing!–it's kind of funny. In a painful way.

But, not unlike the ridiculous don't-bring-a-gun-to-a-snowball-fight story from December, just look at what happens when the irresistible force of interested-party journalism meets up against the immovable object of what passes for local policing and government culture:

An agent in the vehicle, Mike McGuinn, did not identify himself to Medlock at the scene, or apologize for running him down. Indeed, Washington, D.C., police drove to a local emergency room to serve Medlock with a jaywalking citation as he lay prostrate in a hospital bed, while a man who identified himself as "special agent" stood by watching and taking notes. […] Medlock says he was walking within the bounds of the crosswalk, toward a blinking white signal, when a government SUV suddenly turned left and plowed into him, knocking him to the ground. […] Curiously, the [jaywalking] ticket says that Medlock was struck at an intersection four blocks from where the accident actually took place. And it claims that Medlock was walking diagonally across the intersection at the time. In one of his strikingly short conversations with the Daily Caller, agent Mike McGuinn acknowledged that Medlock was not jaywalking at all, but walking "outside the crosswalk when the incident occurred." […] Calls to the State Department were met with evasion and indifference. Spokeswoman Grace Moe first asked a Daily Caller reporter where the publication's offices were located before taking a message. A second DSS spokeswoman, Sarah Rosetti, requested that questions be submitted in writing. When she responded in an e-mail, Rosetti claimed that "a jogger collided with one of the U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Security Service's official vehicles" – as if Medlock, who does not jog, had somehow attacked the SUV. "At all times, Diplomatic Security acted responsibly and appropriately and displayed due diligence in caring for the injured," Rosetti continued.

Seriously, how many dumb government lies are packed into those six paragraphs? And what happens when they run over pedestrians in Anacostia?

UPDATE: Lefty watchdog site Media Matters for America criticizes my write-up:

interestingly, Welch ignores the fact that the original claim—that the Secret Service had clipped Treacher in a "hit-and-run"– turned out to be completely false. Welch bemoans the (government) "lies" being told about the accident, but he ignores perhaps the biggest two of all.

It's true, in my hierarchy of Lies, I am indeed more concerned with government law enforcement agents who slap accident victims with jaywalking tickets in the hospital for intersections they weren't in, then make shit up about "jogging" and "act[ing] responsibly and appropriately," all the while behaving imperious and irritated, than I am with initial confusion/hyperbole from some who just got RUN OVER BY AN SUV. I think that makes me … uh, conservative? Very confusing times.