Once again, when the facts are against you, hold up a shiny object

So this happened this morning:

(1) I shared a Facebook post about Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s financial entanglement with Donald Trump and his sudden decision to retire under Trump’s presidency.

(2) One of the local Trumpeteers deflected away from any connection between Kennedy, his son and Donald Trump by claiming that Kennedy was retiring only because of his age.

(3) “Don't be stupid,” I replied. “Does corruption have to slap you in the face before you know it's there?”

(4) “Stupid?” the Trumpeteer said. “The man has been an impeccable voice of reason for 30 years on SUPCO. He’s 81 and wants to retire with a GOP President and GOP Senate in place so his conservative spot will be preserved. ‘Stupid.’ Name-calling: the last chance of the far left.”

Now I don’t plan to engage this individual any further, because my system can only tolerate a small dose of alternative reality this early in the day, but if I did want to take him on, here is what I would write:

If what you say is true, then Justice Kennedy had plenty of time to reflect on his family’s connections to Donald Trump and to recuse himself from any decision where his life outside the courtroom could have influenced his decisions inside it.

I used to be a journalist. My co-workers and I tried to maintain high ethical standards so that we never gave the appearance of bias. For example, I registered to vote as an Independent so no one could ever accuse me of political party prejudice. If we went to lunch for an interview, I refused to let you pay for mine, even though no reporter I ever knew could be bribed with a chef’s salad. A friend once returned a cheap coffee mug given to him by a radio station he had mentioned in a story.

The point is, we went above and beyond to avoid the appearance of impropriety, which, as the saying goes, can often be worse than the impropriety itself.

You made the claim that Justice Kennedy was “an impeccable voice of reason for 30 years” on the highest court in the land, which suggests he was reasonably intelligent. If he was smart enough to be what you say, then surely he was smart enough to see the possible impropriety of his involvement with Donald Trump and that of his son. If not, then he was either corrupt, extremely naïve or…let me see how to phrase this…stupid.

Which is where this conversation started.

For the record, I’ve had more than my fill of Trump apologists who are only too happy to overlook the immorality, impropriety, ethical vacancy, scandalous behavior and criminal activity of the man, his family and his sycophants, some of whom are very good at waving the shiny silver ball to distract us from the truth. I believe I’ve held my own with some of the best of them, so I’m certainly in no mood to deal with rookies like this guy, whose opinions seem to have been written by Sean Hannity and that female stalker judge who camped out in the woods behind Hillary Clinton’s house.

Maybe it's time for him to put down the remote and step outside for a breath of fresh air.

Come to think of it, maybe all of us should do that once in a while.

And by the way, did you just defend Donald Trump while accusing me of name-calling? Did you seriously put that in writing? Hypocrisy much?