It appears that this newfound dedication to police accountability championed by a select group of conservative pundits and politicians applies solely to the events of January 6. Which is to say that they do not actually support police accountability in any meaningful way.

Over a year ago, I wrote about Carlson’s diatribe against reforming qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that insulates government officials from lawsuits for misconduct. Following Floyd’s death, Congress expressed an interest in reining in the doctrine; Carlson expressed, well, the opposite, having much to say about it, almost all of it inaccurate. That didn’t stop him from publicly flogging Sen. Mike Braun (R–Ind.) for introducing the only Republican bill in the Senate to curtail qualified immunity, which the senator subsequently threw away.

Floyd’s fate did not receive much sympathy from Carlson et. al. Both Floyd and Babbitt were unarmed. The former furnished a counterfeit $20 bill, the latter stormed the Capitol. But Babbitt’s demise has Carlson and others calling for action—declarations that are intensifying following Byrd’s interview, in which he claimed that he “saved countless lives” through what he did that day.