Last week my wife and I took a road trip to Washington to attend The American Spectator‘s annual gala. The AmSpec very generously paid for our stay at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria (formerly the Trump International Hotel).

Our first night in town, we had dinner at the 1789 Restaurant with old friends from our undergraduate days at Georgetown. My friend Larry and I started working at the 1789 when it first opened in 1962, and we always make it a point to gather there whenever possible.

In the 1960s, the drinking age for beer and wine in Washington was 18. As undergraduates Larry and I worked in The Tombs, the 1789’s underground rathskeller, which served an assortment of students from Georgetown and neighboring colleges and universities. Working behind the bar or waiting on tables was a good way to meet girls. As a matter of fact, I met my future wife in The Tombs while I was tending bar.

Anyhow, last week Larry and I bypassed The Tombs and dined with our wives in one of the fancy upstairs dining rooms at the 1789.

The room pictured above has particular significance for me, Larry and our wives. According to unverified reports, approximately fifty years ago we were having dinner there when Larry and I had too much to drink and got into a verbal dispute with another much older customer who accused us of behaving boorishly.

Us? Drunk? Boorish? It is to laugh.

As I say, the reports are of doubtful accuracy. Nevertheless, although Larry and I have only a hazy recollection of events, we do recall that the manager of the 1789 kicked us out and told us to never come back.

Fortunately, there have been several changes of ownership since then, and we are no longer blacklisted at the 1789.

But enough of the trip down memory lane.

The second night in Washington was spent at the AmSpec banquet which was attended by a galaxy of stars of the conservative movement.

The main topic of discussion was Hamas’ attack on Israel and the massing of the Israeli army on the border of the Gaza Strip. The general consensus among the banquet attendees seemed to be that the Israelis should bomb and invade Gaza and do whatever was necessary to wipe out Hamas. If innocent Palestinians got hurt, that would be regrettable but justified under the circumstances.

Now I believe that the destruction of Gaza would be morally reprehensible and would serve only to isolate Israel on the world stage and goad Iran and neighboring Arab countries into attacking Israel. I also believe that, if the Israeli army invaded Gaza, it would be playing into Hamas’ hands and would suffer massive casualties fighting in an urban environment. And all of this would happen while two U.S. carrier battle groups sat off the coast of Gaza just waiting to be drawn into the conflict.

And now, as tensions rise, U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East are under siege by Muslim mobs and leaders in that region are refusing to meet with President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken.

In short, I firmly believe that the wanton obliteration of the Gaza Strip could well lead to the end of Israel and quite possibly start another world war.

But I didn’t feel like voicing my concerns to anyone at the banquet. So I kept my thoughts to myself as I scarfed down dinner and listened stone faced to impassioned arguments as to why the United States should get itself into yet another foreign war.

But once the after dinner speeches were over, I thanked the gala organizers and beat a hasty retreat.

So that was our D.C. road trip.

Yesterday, the AmSpec published my article about U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan entering a gag order against Donald Trump.

In the article, I discuss ways in which Trump could work around the order. But nothing I suggested could match this post on the Babylon Bee captioned “Trump Skirts Gag Order With Mini-Trump Ventriloquist Doll”.

My article references “Chutkan’s silly order” and how it will lead to mockery of the judge. The Bee‘s post sums up the matter nicely.

Here’s my article.

Chutkan’s Gag Order Is Pure Gold for Trump Campaign – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

George Parry

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued a so-called “limited gag order” restricting what former president Donald Trump can say about his ongoing election interference prosecution in the District of Columbia. In granting the motion of Special Counsel Jack Smith to silence Trump, Chutkan stated from the bench, “This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses. This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”

Judge Chutkan claimed that she was balancing Trump’s First Amendment right to free expression with prosecutors’ concerns that his frequent social media attacks might intimidate witnesses or imperil the integrity of the court’s proceedings.

“Mr. Trump can certainly claim he’s being unfairly prosecuted,” Chutkan said magnanimously. “But I cannot imagine any other criminal case in which the defendant is permitted to call the prosecutor ‘deranged’ or a ‘thug,’ and I will not permit it here simply because the defendant is running a political campaign.”

Beyond that Judge Chutkan claimed that she was imposing no additional limits on Trump’s criticisms of the Biden administration or denunciation of the criminal charges as being politically motivated. Nevertheless, in the next breath, she specifically condemned Trump’s online complaints about the Washington jury pool, the Biden administration, and the Justice Department.

In other words, we won’t know exactly what speech Chutkan is forbidding until she files her written order. But, regardless of its terms, there can be no dispute that her gagging of the leading Republican candidate for the presidency is unprecedented and an alarming milestone on this nation’s descent into banana republic status.

Although Chutkan did not state how she would sanction Trump if he violated the terms of her gag order, she could punish such disobedience by imprisoning him for contempt of court.

Trump’s lawyers have announced that they are going to appeal the order as an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech. But, in the meantime, Trump will remain under threat of immediate arrest and imprisonment if he says anything that Judge Chutkan doesn’t like.

That’s the bad news.

But here’s the good news.

As with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith, Chutkan has provided Trump with pure political gold. The only question is how he and his campaign will exploit it.

Will he start wearing a gag in public? Will he announce at campaign rallies that he is no longer permitted to describe Smith as a deranged thug? Will others say publicly what he is forbidden from saying? Will there be social media posts by others stating that which dare not be uttered by Trump?

The myriad ways of getting around Chutkan’s silly order are limitless and — properly orchestrated — will garner political support while making a mockery of her, her regal pretensions, and the forces trying to silence candidate Trump.

In short, by her benighted and ill-conceived gag order, Judge Chutkan has entered the rough and tumble arena of presidential politics.

She is about to get a bruising lesson in how the game is played and the limits of her paltry power to control Trump’s campaign narrative as well as the tidal wave of public outrage that is about to come her way.

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net.