Jean Audran: Minachting [Contempt] (1727)

"Such behavior transcends explanation and excuse."

Our incumbent was never careful. Oh, he took precautions, though even those seemed a little too loose or fast to ultimately evade detection. Most of his administration's business has been conducted on Signal®, an insecure and illegal platform upon which to conduct official business. Even in small things, he chooses lawlessness. He thumbs his nose at convention and decency with equal contempt. I'm unsurprised, then, that the sum of his efforts amounts to Contemptible. He holds decency in contempt as easily as he seems to revere evil. He seems to have been built backward from most people. He can't help but carry what most hold as internal out on his shoulders. He continually shares way too much information. He parses his world with a rusty potato peeler. He skins convention alive. It should be no surprise that he managed to prove himself Contemptible in the eyes of his sole Court of Last Resort, one he struggled, in his last administration, to stack with unfit judges owing him. They suddenly owe him no longer.

It's quite an accomplishment to offend people you paid to be your friend, but even paid-for justices have their limits. Even the corrupted maintain some edges, particularly when the whole world watches. When corruption occurs in the basement, a different kind of judgment dominates. Something more akin to traditional interpretations need to kick in out in public. Out there, novelty raises far too many questions. Out there, people actually are more equal under the law. Only downstairs can heresy hold her space. Questions of relatively minor importance provide the best medium for undermining jurisprudence. Flaunting a Supreme Court order only amplifies lawlessness into contempt. It's no serious way to go about getting either your way or sympathy in the all-important court of public opinion.

The gauntlet's down. Confrontation cannot be avoided now. When Andrew Jackson pretended he was king, he chided the court to muster up its militia. Of course, our Supreme Court doesn't have an enforcement division. Only the Executive has goons. Jackson went about creating The Trail of Tears, perhaps the greatest act of judicial contempt in our country's history, a genuine obscenity. Being Contemptible in the eyes of our Supreme Court might qualify as the ultimate impeachable offense, for it does more than simply ignore a ruling. It ignores the very foundation of our form of government. It is an authentic abomination that cannot be long tolerated. It will be his first ultimate self-sabotage of his second term. Oh, he's been quietly self-sabotaging all along. He committed impeachable offenses in his first hour in office, but none before had risen so high. This one amounts to treason, the highest crime any citizen can commit.

I entertain fantasies of him and his cronies being loaded up onto a C-140 bound for some Salvadorian rent-a-prison where they'll be forced to serve as house servants to all those they wrongfully imprisoned. It might do the old body politic some good to labor in something other than gabardine or golf pants. Cargo shorts and undersized tee shirts should suffice in the humid Central American climate. Life without parole and forfeit all assets to victims, and his story essentially gets erased from the history books by mass disinterest. Those who manage to become genuinely Contemptible write their own legacy. It's never a best seller. It becomes a cautionary tale everyone's heard, and nobody very accurately remembers. They recall the fall and revel in that recollection, for, on reflection, that represents the moment that validated our founder's assumptions. This one crawled further up the canopy than most. As the ghost he became, he will patrol the perimeter to dissuade following generations of corruptibles, who will most certainly come. That memory will achieve our incumbent's greatest success as the ultimate failure and blessing to our cause.

Contempt might be the ultimate self-sabotage. It leaves no wiggle room. It projects offensive arrogance. It attempts to belittle its target but inevitably fails. It might satisfy the source for the first few minutes, but that transmission has no reverse gear. Those found in contempt forfeit all defense. There's never any excuse, for one must try harder than ever seems reasonable to be found Contemptible in the first place. The justices see the offense as the precise opposite of noble. Whatever principle the offender believed he was upholding won't stand muster after the Contemptible behavior kicks in. It's always a matter of going further than could ever seem reasonable. It's clear evidence of the absolute absence of good intentions. It's terrible intentions incarnate, and therefore unforgivable. Nothing matters after but the punishment. The proceedings within which the Contemptible behavior manifested will have been decided and not to the offender's preference. The court, perhaps above all, even above meting justice, must receive respect. Those who manage to offend friends they bought and paid for deserve the greatest punishment. Such behavior transcends explanation and excuse.

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