700 Brass

There was no good reason to bring hundreds of generals and admirals to Washington, DC. No good reason at all. There were, however, some bad ones. For example, it allowed Secretary Hegseth to strut his pitiful ego before his betters. It enabled Trump to demonstrate his unfitness as Commander in Chief while displaying his increasing addledness. It proved the Administration will spend millions of dollars if the optics are cool. And that’s just the start of a long list of bad reasons. But it is for these bad reasons that they came.

700 Brass makes the extremely safe prediction that video of the gathering will appear in political ads coming to your streaming service soon. “Highlights” from the conclave are already in nearly constant rotation on Fox “News.”

But this strip also suggests there was a more subtle motive for the meeting: an opportunity to solve a huge, ongoing problem for the Administration: secretly slipping the Epstein Files to one of the attendees. It’s the perfect hiding spot for the inconvenient records. Following the Red Queen in a traditional Three-Card Monte scam is hard enough. Finding the files among nearly 800 brass is thinking big.

I almost used a reference to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Hiding the “prize” in one of seven identical suitcases was a key plot point. But really, how many of you saw the film? (I did and thought it was good, but your results may differ).

Then I thought of comparing it to the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But “burying” the prize through administrative incompetence and manipulation is what the Administration is already doing.

Three-card Monte is more in the Trump/Miller style. It’s a con. It requires intent to deceive and the willingness to take the rubes’ 20 bucks. This seemed more fitting for a 34-time felon. That Three-card Monte is shorter than the movie titles and I was running tight for space also helped.

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