The Single Funniest Thing on the Web May Mask Tragedy
By James C. Sherlock
The story behind the jokes is true, well-documented, and strange. From X:
Comedy is funniest when it is based on an underlying truth. Frietas offers a hilarious satire.
Attorney General Jay Jones is lit up by Mr. Frietas for actual typos. Virginia (Virgnia) and Senator (Sentator) were misspelled in a court filing seeking a delay in the certification of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision finding the recent redistricting process illegal under the Virginia Constitution. He also lampoons Jones for the misspelling of Attorney (Attoney) on his official website and Lucas for misspelling Senator (again, unaccountably, Sentator) in her press release about her recent arrest.
The satire is funny because it is so well done and true. A fascination for the audience that makes it funnier is that the errors are so inexplicable in the modern era. This author has been forced to override his spell checker to let him even quote each of the misspellings.
What is not funny is Jay Jones’ ongoing struggles. Before his election, he made a terrible error in an infamous early morning text that revealed extremely dark thoughts – he expressed a wish for the death of a political opponent’s children.
Now this. Were the embarrassing errors that were the subject of the Frietas lampoon committed again in the early morning?
For those supporting the appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, having it laughed at is not what they wanted. Those opposing it know that SCOTUS will reject an appeal of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision as not its business – a matter of interpretation of a state constitution by a state supreme court, whose job it is to do so. So it ultimately will not matter to the outcome.
But this author retained Jay Jones’s services once while he was in private practice, likes him personally, and wishes him well. The man I knew so briefly back then, after an error like the filing, might have laughed at himself publicly to defuse the situation. It would have been a great response.
The infamous email exposed during the campaign was certainly no laughing matter. He is now the Attorney General of Virginia. With this fiasco, all Virginians, especially those with his personal best interests in mind, have to ask: What is causing what is now an emerging pattern of strange and unforced errors?
We sincerely hope he will find out what it is and address it.
Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.
