In “The Killing Joke,” the Joker has kidnapped one Batman ally and crippled another to prove the world is absurd, and wants to know why Batman isn’t laughing. Savagely grabbing the Joker, Batman replies, “Because I’ve heard it before and it wasn’t funny the first time.”
The line often pops into my head when somebody in politics does something politically stupid or something they think is politically brilliant. No, the two aren’t the same, although the joke tells itself.
We’ve heard Jay Jones’s joke before. “Shoot the lawyer twice,” was the original ending, although “shoot the political consultant twice” is one of my favorite variations. It’s not a joke about violence so much as expressing disdain for a person and then doubling down on it. No politicians were harmed in the making of this joke. Rather, it’s a joke about political opportunism and immaturity.
Jones’s opportunism first became obvious to many when he played the race card on Mark Herring. Herring had used dark makeup in a Halloween portrayal of a rap musician when he was 19. Jones, running against Herring for the attorney general nomination, said Herring, 60 by then, wasn’t sufficiently apologetic. Jones at the time was running with the endorsement of Ralph Northam, who was older than 19 when he used a character in a Klan hood for his medical school yearbook photo. No hypocrites were harmed in the making of this paragraph?
Jones’s immaturity was evident in his speeding ticket, 116 mph on I64. He described it as several years ago, three years in real time, after his first run for AG and when he surely knew he’d make another. He was 33 at the time, too old to be driving like that and too old to be doing something that foolish if he was planning to run for office.
His immaturity was also evident in the joke about shooting Todd Gilbert twice. Let’s forgive him for stealing the joke and adapting it badly. Let’s forgive him for sending it to a Republican delegate. That leaves Democrats and swing voters statewide with the question of whether he can be forgiven for being so politically tone-deaf, immature, and irresponsible.
Since 1970, three attorneys general have become Virginia’s governor, two Republican and one Democrat. (It’s not a lock; six have lost.) If Abigail Spanberger wins the race for governor and Jason Miyares defeats Jones for attorney general, Miyares becomes the front runner for the Republican nomination for governor four years from now. Either Jones or Miyares will spend four years issuing interpretations for state law and deciding whether to join or not join national suits on health and consumer protection. The role isn’t a prosecutor. Saying Jones has never prosecuted a case is as irrelevant as asking whether he’s ever been a NASCAR driver, if it’s not too soon for that reference.
One of these men will be having a profound effect on state policy for four years and likely preparing to run for governor. For a lot of us, the decision comes down to “Dem good, Pub bad.” Do we vote purely on policy and accept Jones’s frequent and necessary apologies? Do we ask how much damage Miyares’ right-wing policies can do and hope a Democratic governor and General Assembly can counteract them? If we vote based purely on character, are we ceding ground to a party that, based on who’s president, obviously doesn’t?
When Republican Henry Hyde was leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton over oral sex, Hyde revealed that he’d had an affair when he was 41 years old, but he dismissed it as a youthful indiscretion. That’s Jones, describing the reckless driving as several years ago instead of three. Virginia’s politics over the next decade may hinge in part on how many can hold their noses and vote for Jones on policy issues and hope he grows up.