(screenshot via YouTube)
Being neck deep in the Trump “Russiagate” debacle must really do a number on the brain. Based on what we know of the events, it seems like a Foucault’s Pendulum of conspiracy theory upon a conspiracy theory answered with a conspiracy theory: Trump and his people aren’t really deep cover Putin agents because all sides of that idea are far too stupid to have realized that it was an option, but; no, the White House wasn’t “entrapped” or “corruptly prosecuted” when it decided to interfere with the Russia investigation when they realized it might paint them as the dim-witted enablers that they were, and; Hunter Biden… yeah Hunter Biden somehow. And John Dowd planted himself in the center of all of it, plugging himself directly into the wingnut mainframe like some sort of QAnon Neo.
And now we have Dowd’s unhinged ramblings about how the wave of protests against police brutality — the ones we’ve all watched on television if not personally participated in — simply don’t exist. It’s all an illluuuusssssion, man!
Donald Trump, who bashed Dowd when the latter walked away from the Mueller investigation, had a miraculous change of heart about his former lawyer after Dowd prepared a response to the critique General Jim Mattis leveled of the administration. Trump sent it around Twitter last night and this is some grade A, “get grandpa away from the typewriter” material. At least it wasn’t in Comic Sans this time.
As a legal writing exercise, this should be a strong advertisement for any future client to seek other counsel.
Jim:
I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset, You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation-earned with the blood and guts of young Marines
You did what you said you would – engage in this discourse.
Marines keep their word.
Dowd, a mere company-grade officer in the Marines Judge Advocate Division, is here to question the military bona fides of a guy called “The Warrior Monk” by everyone who’s ever hung around him. This should go swimmingly. Hey John, we’ll wake you when it’s time to prosecute someone for drunk driving on the base and let the General here talk about policy.
What is it with these junior officers anyway? Tom Cotton’s New York Times editorial: “Tiananmen Square… Maybe They Should Have Run Over That Guy” is another instance of a low-level officer preaching expertise in a field that he declined to take the time and effort to master.
Now we get to the money line:
The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real.
Not real! It’s the “no collusion!” of our time.
In fairness, Dowd isn’t saying that there aren’t people in the streets, he’s saying that all of these hundreds of thousands of people turning out every night are the silent Antifa conspirators that Q is telling us about or some other delusion.
They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the
1900 curfew.
Except… we have video of the area and know that none of this is true. Barr just walked down there and ordered the clearing of the park. If there were folks out there trying to burn and destroy you’d think they’d have done a better job of accomplishing it by now. The Minneapolis police precinct building is about the only thing anyone’s burned down and 54 percent of Americans think that was justified. Honestly, which is it: are the students coddled snowflakes or efficiently organized vicious saboteurs? It’s getting difficult for Bari Weiss to get her code words straight.
President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last fifty. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. He got them funded.
I don’t think Dowd wants to know where the majority of those folks are going. Maybe he should have just said, “Martin Luther King Jr would have said…” and been done with it.
I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy this President, his office, and his lawful free election.
You know, Mattis was in that office most of the time, right?
At this point, Dowd just goes off in a number of directions, praising Trump for prison reform before decrying the unlawful release of “hoodlums.” Does MS-13 come up? Oh, you bet it does!
Before it’s all said and done, Captain Dowd rips General Mattis as a failure as a general, a conclusion that, if true, would mean Trump knowingly placed a failure in the Defense Secretary role, which would seem more damning if any sort of logical throughline existed in any of this.
Meanwhile Ty Cobb’s jamming out at scum punk shows and making a good living working children’s parties as a Wilford Brimley impersonator. It seems like he’s found a way to let go of all the crazy and just live. Hopefully Dowd can find a path to that sort of peace too.
Maybe they can get together for lunch and talk about it.
Read the whole letter on the next page if you’re looking for more fun.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.