I wonder to the degree special counsel Jack Smith realizes he is playing with fire, American fire of the most dangerous sort.
I wonder the same thing about Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Due to the congressional testimony of special counsel Robert Hur, it has become yet clearer that Mr. Hur was tripping over himself and bending over backward to not indict President Joe Biden in his classified documents case.
The man, as portrayed by Mr. Hur, is too senile to stand trial yet somehow competent to be president.
A particularly eye-rolling moment came when Mr. Hur responded to Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) asking why no indictment was forthcoming when it was demonstrated that Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter, who had no clearance, that he had classified documents in his possession.
Mr. Hur offered as an explanation (his nervous expression betraying what he was saying, as it would for any normal person) that Mr. Biden might have forgotten he had those same documents the next day.
If that were even remotely so—and it’s not; Mr. Biden had such documents secreted for years in a minimum of nine places, some of them about as secure as the neighborhood Dempsey Dumpster—the idea that this person would be within 50 miles of the nuclear button is terrifying.
It should be noted that Mr. Biden has been secreting classified documents literally for decades, since he was a senator when he wasn’t authorized to have them, long before former President Donald Trump was in politics.
And yet after Mr. Hur did that triple back flip to save Mr. Biden from indictment and prevent an American fire, Mr. Smith is still bent on igniting one at all costs by prosecuting President Trump for seemingly similar, but actually far lesser, crimes.
At least President Trump wasn’t keeping the nation’s secrets next to a used Zappos box in his garage.
Nevertheless, onwards, Mr. Smith. Do your thing.
Think what would actually happen if, because of him and his boss, Mr. Garland, the 45th president is denied the opportunity to compete for the presidency against the man Mr. Hur excused for what will be recognized by much of the public as what is, in essence, feeblemindedness?
No one can be sure exactly what will transpire, but it’s highly likely to threaten our Republic as nothing since the Civil War, even possibly be a national nightmare exceeding that conflagration in death and destruction with a more cataclysmic result.
The original Civil War ended in a renewed nation in peace, free of slavery. Such an event now could leave us with a post-apocalyptic world out of a Mel Gibson “Mad Max” movie, to continue the film metaphors.
Sound exaggerated?
I don’t know and neither do you, dear reader.
Remember the “Arab Street”? What we are going to be dealing with is the “American Street”—how that, a large proportion of it, responds, how we respond.
Jan. 6 was the furthest thing from a real insurrection. Ask the late Muammar Gaddafi—he can explain how a real one works (hint: they tend to be armed). But we may get to see it and experience it for ourselves.
What I do know is what Mr. Smith is doing is a form of national reckless endangerment.
An interesting question is how the Supreme Court will respond to all this. Rarified as they are—in most cases, it may have been years since they have lived normal lives among the people—they still must have a sense of the intense division in our country.
It’s nothing, if not talked and written about, all day long.
Will they allow all Hades to break out?
We can be somewhat optimistic from the SCOTUS decision overriding Colorado’s attempt to ban Mr. Trump from running for president in that state. It dissuaded others from taking similar actions.
Or Mr. Trump could end up in jail, having to run from there, if that’s even possible. We don’t know.
We are in the proverbial unchartered waters. Amid all the advice to stock up on supplies, be sure to pick up some Dramamine.
As for Mr. Smith, I don’t think we can expect him to back off, even with the awkward comparison to Robert Hur.
Among the signs of the best human beings is the ability to admit it when you are wrong. Mr. Smith does not appear to be the type that can do that.
For the sake of all of us, I wish he were.
