Yes, it’s been a while since we’ve met on the enemy front. Enemy of the Week petered out a while ago, owing to how all roads kept leading back to that self-styled valet at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And all along we knew better than to pick on that tall well-exercised woman who has shopped at Target only to take offense at being asked to do some extra lifting by an unenlightened fellow shopper. But that’s all in the past, and it’s time to move on from what our man in that White House would term an “outdated approach.”
So we ask: Isn’t it time that we too “begin a new chapter” and move to “advance our interests” by lifting our embargo on our weekly laureates? Indeed, it is past time. So here goes. A week is an eternity in the pursuit of justice. From now on, all matters of enmity will be handled on a daily basis. Get ready for Enemy of the Day. We launch today, in recognition of yesterday’s very busy news cycle.
“Thank you President Obama for everything you have done.” Not exactly words to warm the heart. They came from released American hostage Alan Gross, who was freed after five harsh years in Cuban Communist captivity during which it was never clear whether America’s president even knew of his plight let alone was troubled by it. Mr. Gross said a few things yesterday that confused matters further, particularly when he blamed his imprisonment and the suffering of the Cuban people not on Communist brutality as such but on “two governments’ mutually belligerent policies.” Let’s not be too hard on him. Seriously, he suffered enormously and he’s clearly a very kind man, to wit: Much as he admires our president he found someone he admires even more. “It was particularly cool to be sitting next to the Secretary of State,” he let on. Has anyone outside of James Taranto every said anything nicer about Jean-François Kerry?
Lost in the hemispheric fireworks were a few other developments. In the world of Virginia politics, people are wondering why former Gov. Bob McDonnell is expected to receive a 10-year prison sentence for on a corruption conviction involving a Rolex watch, $175,000 in disputed favors, and free use of a hot sports car on a getaway weekend — while no one has bothered to look into Sen. Mark Warner’s much more alarming abuse of power. It couldn’t be because only one of them is a Democrat, could it?
A variation of that game also involved a member of our favorite opposition party, though in reading about it yesterday at Washington Post you initially would have had to have been Sherlock Holmes to sniff out that the blackguard in question is a registered Democrat if not yet a registered sex offender. (His party affiliation was hurriedly added to the story many hours after it was posted.) He’s 57, his trophy teen was 17, and he is serving a six-month jail sentence on the loosest terms. Not bad for a four-term Democrat in the Virginia House who naturally doesn’t think he should have to resign his seat. Saner minds may prevail, presumably if a deal can be worked out in which the dirty dog’s party affiliation goes unrecorded in the expulsion papers. He won’t go down in history, but Virginia state Del. Joseph D. Morrissey (D-Richmond) is our first Enemy of the Day, which should be enough to secure him a mention in Lena Dunham’s next memoir.
