Opinion | Stone-Cold Loser – The New York Times



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WASHINGTON – Roger Stone has always lived in a world where dogs eat.

It was therefore appropriate that he was charged with murder, in part for threatening to kidnap a therapy dog, a soft, sweet-faced Tuléar Coton, owned by Randy Credico, a New York radio host. .

Robert Mueller thinks that Credico, a friend of Julian Assange, has served as an intermediary with WikiLeaks for Stone. Mueller's indictment alleges that Stone had labeled Credico "rat" and "stupid" because he thought that the radio host would not confirm that that the special council claimed to be Stone's false story about his contacts with WikiLeaks, who had leaked the hacked emails from Russia's DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

Stone sent an email to Credico telling him that he would "take that dog away," says the indictment, then adding, "I'm so ready. you to die (expletive). "

As the owner of two Yorkies, Stone clearly knows how scary it is to see a beloved dog put himself in danger. When he left the court on Friday, he immediately complained that F.B.I. Officers had "terrorized" his dogs when they came to stop him at his home in Fort Lauderdale at dawn.

The last thing Stone posted on Instagram before his arrest was a video of a burrow, with an acute, protesting voice over: "Roger Stone did nothing wrong".

Always bespoke and upset, knowing that it is better to be infamous than ever famous, Stone seemed strangely unadorned as he was coming out of court to meet the press in a navy blue polo and bluejeans.

As the dark master captured in the darkness was heading toward the bright light of Fort Lauderdale, he was his flamboyant and shameless self. He proclaimed his innocence, posted Nixon's victory sign and reiterated the old saw from his mentor, Roy Cohn, claiming all attention is good.

But he fell flat. Being Roger Stone had finally caught up with him.

He always said that Florida suited him because "it was a sunny place for shady people," borrowing a Somerset Maugham line. But now, the cradle of dirty cat lies and tricks had tripped the putative dognapper. And the same day, Paul Manafort – his former partner in a lobbying firm filled with rancorous dictators as clients, then his friend in Donald Trump's senseless campaign – were also brought to trial in federal court on charges related to the Mueller probe . Manafort's hair is now almost completely white.

One of Stone's rules – with soaking his martini olives in vermouth and never wearing a double-baded suit with a button down collar – is "Deny, Deny, Deny". But his arrest for lying, embarrbaded and altered testimony has provoked the inevitable question about his occasional friend in the White House, the man who is the last piece of the puzzle in the investigation on the so-called Trumpworld coordination with Russia: is Donald Trump on the verge of catching up with Donald Trump?

Stone, who has Nixon's tattooed face on his back, is the provocative agent who is Nixon's direct link and his impeachment towards Trump and his possible impeachment.

As Manafort stated in the 2017 documentary "Get Me Roger Stone, "Trump and Stone" see the world in a very similar way. "So, it's theatrical and cynical. Do what you need to do to get what you want; playing according to the rules is for cupping.

In 1999, when I went to Miami to witness Trump's trial in the presidential waters, Stone orchestrated Trump's speech in front of Cuban-American Americans. Bodybuilding, oscillating strategist, christened "the state of the art" sleazeball "of The New Republic in the 80s, said that he was" a jockey looking for a horse. "

Stone, who was mingled with Watergate at the age of 19, "has made the transition from the stone age of twisted towers to today," as David Axelrod says.

He watched Nixon gather the silent majority with a police message and a hissing racial dog. He helped Ronald Reagan create the Reagan Democrats.

For decades, believing that "the past was a prologue," Stone urged Trump to succeed these politicians, thus highlighting the anger of white and working-clbad voters who felt belittled or frightened by "the other." resentment, as proved by Stone and Trump, when they ignited the controversy between the young man and Barack Obama.

"Hate is a stronger motivator than love," Stone told documentary filmmakers. "Human nature has never changed."

Tribal tensions in America have made Stone's favorite tricks easier than ever; he did not have to operate in the shadows. He wore a T-shirt with Bill Clinton and the word "rape" at the 2016 campaign rallies. As Stone boasted in the documentary, his "burn" tactic was "fashionable".

Trump had periods of remoteness with Stone. In 2008, in In an interview with the New Yorker, he called the strategist a "crazy loser", a state that Trump himself was relegated to last week, thanks to Nancy Pelosi.

Stone will not go smoothly. When asked about Nixon's tattoo, he says he has had time to remember: "A man does not finish when he is defeated; he is only finished when he leaves.

For the moment, however, pursued by Mueller, Stone and Manafort are the dog's breakfast. The pair gave a bad name to the practice of black arts.

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