Well, Now They Have to Indict

Nice country you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.

You know, I used to find Lindsey Graham tolerably amusing, back in the day. For years he played pilot fish to John McCain’s Great White Shark, and because McCain wasn’t nuts, Graham didn’t have to be either. He was even funny in his Southern-fried way, witty and always good for a quote, and when Trump took that first pompous ride down the oh-so-shiny escalator in his gaudy, tasteless Manhattan tower, Graham made all sorts of proper noises: Trump was a kook, a grifter, unfit, a menace, and so on.

But then Trump won, McCain died, and Lindsey needed a new apex predator to trail, so he slipstreamed into Donald’s big-assed wake faster than you could say “insufferable hypocrite”. There he’s remained, enabling, praising, and defending Dear Leader at every turn, while caddying Trump’s golf clubs all over the links at his absurd seaside pleasure dome. “Brown nosing” doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s been sickening to watch, actually, and maybe Graham felt a little bit ill himself, underneath the smiley veneer, but if you want to hang with The Donald you have to pledge undying fealty while surrendering every last shred of what little dignity you might still possess, and man, you never saw a guy give it up like Lindsey did. He had to, you see. The alternative was too horrifying to contemplate: irrelevance.

Now, though – now he’s making threats. Indict Trump, and it’ll be riot and insurrection, says Lindsey, and that’s not his glum assessment – it’s a promise. It’s meant to intimidate. Mark my words, your streets will run with innocent blood. Oh yeah? Is that so, Lindsey? Do you double-dog dare us? Swear to God, if I was Merrick Garland I’d indict Fat Donny right now, right this instant, and I’d make sure they perp-walked the moron right out the front gate of his ridiculous gold-plated whorehouse, straight past every reporter and anybody else who has a camera.

I’ve been following closely the big debate now being held between the pundits, as they struggle to figure out which outcome would be worse, indicting Trump, or not indicting him. This is no simple question, and like most everybody else, I’ve been torn. There’s all sorts of pragmatic arguments against clapping him in irons, and I get it, I do, but here’s the thing: they are all, at their base, about succumbing to extortionate GOP threats.

They’ll just impeach Biden when they take back the house!

Garland had better clear his calendar and save all his e-mails, because it’ll be Benghazi on steroids for the rest of his professional life!

Prosecuting an ex-President just invites more of the same when it’s their turn, and Barr showed us how far they’re willing to pervert the Justice Department into an arm of the Republican Party – before long, it’ll be Biden in the slam!

And now: our cities will burn when Donald’s legion of malignant thugs rises up to avenge him!

Enough. Either the battered institutions of the American justice system stand up now, at long last, to push back with every legal means at their disposal, or the United States no longer functions under the rule of law. If Trump, who God knows deserves everything that’s coming to him, yet again manages to bully and slime his way out of any consequences, that’s it. We may as well leave the office door swinging, and hand the keys to the nearest Proud Boy on our way down the front steps. It’s come to that. It’s that frigging simple. They’re making threats, and there can now be only one response.

Merrick, in the name of God, do your duty.