Net-Man

In ancient Rome, there were gladiators known as “retiarii” or “net-men,” who fought with the tools of a fisherman: a long, thick, trident, a weighted net, and a dagger.

One such fighter was called Roberticus, who retired undefeated after besting a lion, the victory costing him his left ear and eye.

Coincidentally, we have a modern gladiator named Robert Mueller who is fighting a would-be emperor with his own version of the weighted net, or nets.

This sham president never tires of two-bit rallies where he pumps up his slavering minions with a blathering combination of lies and falsehoods, which they suck up like Dr. Pepper.

Robert Mueller, for his part, remains as silent as a political grave, directing his equally silent team as they deliver a never-ending stream of indictments against the henchmen of our would-be tyrant. 

Mueller is our net-man and our hope and prayer. He is vastly experienced in his pursuit of the shifting shapes of truth and guilt, and wily, as well.

He has an arsenal of nets with which to entangle and befuddle the chaotic defenders of Donald Trump. Mueller knows full well that he walks the razor’s edge every minute of every day of his net-casting. He knows that his removal from the arena hovers like a Damoclean sword, awaiting only the final knee-jerk assent from Trump to supposedly end his mission.

Ah, but Mueller has craftily built in a series of fail-safes, safety nets, as it were, to insure that even if he is removed from the arena, his legions can fight on.

Mueller handed off to the Southern District of New York the examination of the sins of one Michael Cohen, long-time Trump fixer and cut-rate lawyer, and that investigation is safe from the wizened hands of Trump and his B team of lawyers, led by the obviously insane Rudy Giuiliani. 

There is every indication that Cohen is going to flip on Trump, whose team is now vilifying him non-stop, and lead New York prosecutors to where many bodies are buried. That is a net that Trump can’t escape, no matter how Giuliani rails against Cohen as a pathological liar, which takes one to know one.

There is also the net entangling Paul Manafort, Trump’s short-lived campaign manager, who is now on trial in Virginia, another safe haven from any Trump interference. Manafort’s Russian connections are literally endless and he is going to be helpless under the net of the well-aimed and well-researched questions from the Mueller team. 

Unlike the many Trump stooges who have copped guilty pleas, Manafort chose to go to trial, perhaps in the hopes that a Trump pardon will save him from the jail time that is almost certainly his fate. That’s not a very good choice, given that Trump has the loyalty of a king cobra.

So the net-man cometh for thee, Donald Trump.

And in November, the voters also come for thee. Not with nets, but with tridents and daggers, ready to strike deep and deadly.  

And begin to end this horror.