Dancing On Graves: Going Low, Lower, Lowest (For Now)

This weekend, former Marine, combat veteran, FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who tragically failed to take down a treacherous sociopath, died of Parkinson’s disease at 81. In response, said sociopath took a moment out from his botched, illegal, calamitous war to giddily declare of a man widely deemed “a cut above” who for five decades served his country not himself, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” thus proving for the 7,648th time what a twisted, vile, piece-of-shit human being he is.

In what one observer calls “an epic tale of diverging American elites,” both men, born just two years apart, were raised in privilege in Northeastern cities. Before famously heading the sprawling, two-year investigation into collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, Mueller lived a long life of patrician public service, much of it defending the rule of law as a registered Republican, which stood in sharp contrast to Private Bonespur’s grimy, relentless pursuit of private profit. Mueller grew up in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb; he once said that within the “strict moral code” of his father, a DuPont executive, “A lie was the worst sin.” He went to prep school, Princeton, NYU, and then, with the Vietnam War unfurling, Quantico and Army Ranger School.

A former athlete and newly forged Marine, he didn’t just volunteer for Vietnam; he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. In 1968, he arrived in Vietnam a green Second Lieutenant, serving as a rifle platoon leader in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. With his Ivy League background – his senior thesis was on African territorial disputes before the International Court of Justice – he was met with skepticism but quickly earned respect as a thorough, quiet, “no-bullshit guy” who maintained his composure even in the intense combat of some of the war’s bloodiest battles. After being wounded, rescuing one of his men and being airlifted out, he earned a Bronze Star with Valor, a Purple Heart and multiple other medals.

Though he rarely talked about Vietnam, he credited the Marines with instilling in him a lifelong drive and discipline. In a speech years later, he said he felt “exceptionally lucky” to have survived the war and so felt “compelled to contribute.” He went to law school, served as a prosecutor in California, was a US attorney for Massachusetts and California, and oversaw several high-level DOJ investigations before Bush nominated him as director of the FBI; he was sworn in a week before 9/11. He served for 12 years, the longest tenure since J. Edgar Hoover, under both GOP and Democratic presidents. Even at the upper reaches of power, he was respected for remaining determinedly non-partisan in his unwavering belief that nobody was above the law.

Appointed Special Counsel in May 2017 amidst political turmoil, he kept a stoic silence; he said nothing publicly about the Russia investigation, and his careful team of prosecutors leaked nothing. The probe issued 34 indictments – Manafort, Flynn, Gates, Stone etc – and named ten instances of Trump’s obstruction of justice, but failed to indict him. Ultimately, in the view of many unhappy Americans breathlessly awaiting the Criminal-in Chief’s downfall, Mueller waffled. To a House Judiciary Committee’s query about his decision not to prosecute, he clarified, “We made a decision not to decide whether to prosecute.” He added if they “had confidence” Trump didn’t commit obstruction of justice, “We would so state. We are unable to reach that judgment.”

But by then, nobody was listening. Some argue Mueller was “set up to fail,” if not by temperament by a corrupt system. A too-narrow mandate focused on Russia, “one slice of a much larger conspiracy,” ignored “a multiplex of enemies of democracy,” from oligarchs to Saudis. And slimy Bill Barr, aka “Coverup-General Barr” for stonewalling scandals from Iran-Contra to Epstein, deliberately undermined the entire process by releasing a four-page summary of a complex, 448-page report so wildly distorted Mueller himself protested it “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his work. Barr’s conclusion – “No collusion, no obstruction” – was “a lie, but an effective one.” No one was held accountable. Perfidious mission accomplished.

Mueller’s death, nearly five years after his Parkinson’s diagnosis, prompted a wide range of responses. Some found him directly responsible for Trump being, not in prison where he belongs but free to practice “the cascading criminality that has defined his public life.” “I will NOT lionize someone who (failed) at the earliest opportunity to STOP this madness,” one critic wrote. “Two things can be true at one time. Mueller was a patriot. And Mueller’s lasting legacy is allowing Barr to bully him into silence.” Friends and colleagues praised “a person of the greatest integrity” who remained “committed to the rule of law” and whose “courage could never be questioned.” Wrote former Obama A.G. Eric Holder, “Bob made the nation better.”

Then there’s the irredeemable, “petty, shameful, despicable,” “vile and disgusting” cretin who insulted John McCain, called America’s war dead “losers” and “suckers,” was disgusted by wounded troops – “No one wants to see that” – and daily, ceaselessly “shows his basic indecency and unfitness for office,” or, for that matter, life. “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” he wrote. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!” Then, malevolently driving home the tragic consequences of his moral and political Pyrrhic victory for all to lament, he signed his revolting post, “President DONALD J. TRUMP.” O Hamlet, what a falling off was there. Our great, modern, inexplicable catastrophe: “Sadly, this is the president we have.”

On Sunday, his lackeys placed on the White House grounds a statue of Christopher Columbus, a replica of one tossed into Baltimore’s harbor in 2020 by “rioters,” aka peaceful protesters after George Floyd’s murder. America was overjoyed: No more disastrous war, inaccessible health care, food and gas we can’t afford, still-suffering Epstein survivors. The GOP’s core principles – spite and stupidity – reign. Let them eat statues. Around midnight, he wrote, “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, TO PUT IT MILDLY!” After his grotesque post on Mueller’s death, the folks at Zeteo wrote the White House asking – think Charlie Kirk – if it’s ok others react like Trump at his passing. No response as yet. But Lord, how the angels will sing, and the world will rejoice.

Compare and contrast.Image/meme from Bluesky