It’s a really bad column, unless he’s trying to plant an insanity defense, in which case it’s a very smart one, JonathanChait writes
Nailed it. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock For several years, the national-security community has been wondering what the hell happened to Michael Flynn. Once a well-regarded director of national intelligence for the Obama administration, Flynn appeared, according to his critics, to snap. He grew paranoid and obsessed with expanding a war against radical Islam into a Manichaean civilizational conflict. The rest is history.
Flynn has written an op-ed, headlined “Forces of Evil Want to Steal Our Freedom in the Dark of Night, But God Stands With Us,” that resolves the question. If you haven’t heard of Western Journal, don’t feel bad. I haven’t either, and I work in opinion journalism professionally. Presumably, Flynn shopped his column to several outlets before WJ agreed to run it.
How to judge this op-ed? It is difficult to evaluate without knowing whether Flynn’s objective was to advance a policy agenda or to help his legal team plant an insanity defense. On the plus side, his prose is — well, distinctive. And his argument is difficult to rebut. On the negative side, his main contention regarding the forces of evil and their alleged goals of stealing freedom is lacking in concrete evidence. The column is easier to understand if you read it in the voice of Colonel Jack D. Ripper, the deranged right-wing general in Dr. Strangelove. If I had edited the column, I would have urged Flynn to periodically address the reader as “Mandrake.
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