‘Bobby Three Sticks’ Versus The Pathological Liar: ‘Hustle Bobby’

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Excerpted from Maureen Dowd’s latest in The New York Times

As we contemplate crime and punishment in the Trump circle, it should be noted that our Russia-besotted president does share some traits with Dostoyevsky’s spiraling protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov.

Both men are naifs who arrive and think they have the right to transgress. Both are endlessly fascinating psychological studies: self-regarding, with Napoleon-style grandiosity, and self-incriminating. Both are consumed with chaotic, feverish thoughts as they are pursued by a relentless, suspicious lawman.

But it is highly doubtful that Melania will persuade Donald to confess all to special counsel Robert Mueller III and slink off to Siberia.

We are in for an epic clash between two septuagenarians who both came from wealthy New York families and attended Ivy League schools but couldn’t be more different – the flamboyant flimflam man and the buttoned-down, buttoned-up boy scout. (And we know the president has no idea how to talk to scouts appropriately.)

One has been called America’s straightest arrow. One disdains self-promotion and avoids the press. One married his sweetheart from school days. One was a decorated Marine in Vietnam. One counts patience, humility and honesty as the virtues he lives by and likes to say “You’re only as good as your word.”

And one’s president.

Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio says the president has been lying reflexively since he was a kid bragging about home runs he didn’t hit. He gets warped satisfaction from making up stuff, like those calls from the head of the Boy Scouts and the president of Mexico that the White House just admitted never happened.

[…]

Going hammer and tong after hammer and sickle, Mueller has crossed Trump’s Red Line, using multiple grand juries and issuing subpoenas in a comprehensive inquiry covering not only possible campaign collusion but also business dealings by Trump and his associates with Russia. The Times reported Friday that Mueller’s investigators had asked the White House for documents related to Michael Flynn.

A White House adviser told me recently about how scary Mueller’s dream team is, and how Jared Kushner should be nervous. Every time Mueller adds a legal celebrity to his crew, the music gets cued for an “Ocean’s Eleven” or “Dirty Dozen” array of talent. One lawyer helped destroy the New York City mafia; another helped bring down Nixon; another tackled Enron; others are experts on foreign bribery and witness-flipping. As GQ’s Jay Willis wrote, “If these people were coming for you over a parking ticket, you’d be thinking about liquidating your life savings.”

[…]

Trump does not yet seem to fathom that Mueller is empowered in a way no one else is to look at all sorts of things. This isn’t some tiff over a casino, where Trump can publicly berate opposing counsel and draw him into a public spat. Mueller won’t take the bait.

At a boisterous West Virginia rally Thursday night, Trump was back in fiery campaign mode, mocking the idea that he was the Siberian candidate.

“Are there any Russians here tonight?” he said. “Any Russians?”

All I can say is: Hurry up, Bobby Three Sticks. (Mueller got this moniker from F.B.I. agents because of the three Roman numerals at the end of his name.)

[…]

On Thursday, the president pout-tweeted that it was Congress’s fault that “our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low.” So he was blaming lawmakers who punished Russia for a cyberattack on our election rather than blaming Russia for sticking a saber in the heart of our democracy.

Hustle, Bobby Three Sticks.

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4 thoughts on “‘Bobby Three Sticks’ Versus The Pathological Liar: ‘Hustle Bobby’

  1. I love the “this isn’t some tiff over a casino” line, Maureen is always a hoot and one of the most honest writers around. Bobby “three sticks” is moving fast for this sort of investigation and trump does not understand what is about to hit him squarely in his “lie infested life”. You get one, 1, I, only one chance to tell the truth to Mr. Mueller and his grand juries. Can and will any or all of the rats running from this sinking ship talk, count on it.

  2. DiMaggio never got over Monroe…Gable pined his life away after losing Lombard…Donald had Roy Cohn’s over the top Red Scare nastiness tattooed on his psyche at a very vulnerable age. Cohn must have felt he had been given the perfect pupil to plague the world with after he had passed. It also gave Roy a leg up on God since he proved that the meek do not always inherit the Earth.

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