Louise Mensch, is prone to tweeting out her personal and professional meltdowns into the ether–much like her purported arch-nemesis and would-be bête noire, President Donald Trump.
No small wonder then, that Mrs. Mensch has made a drastic–and hasty–decision with the stroke of one hand hitting ‘send’ on the extremely normal micro-blogging website Twitter dot com.
Last night, the former British Conservative Member of Parliament fired her lawyer because he had the audacity to disagree with one-time presidential candidate Evan McMullin.
McMullin, who was definitely seriously running for president and absolutely not totally running a grift, logged on to Twitter yesterday afternoon and commented on the news that fake Russian Facebook accounts allegedly purchased $100,000 worth of political advertising during the 2016 presidential election.
Mensch’s lawyer, Mark S. Zaid then chimed in and noted that the United States frequently does the same thing–interferes in other countries’ elections–and occasionally overthrows foreign governments from time to time. He also sarcastically added, “At least the #Russians financially contributed to our economy!!”
The joke was apparently too much for McMullin.
McMullin then quote-tweeted Zaid and got very serious. He said, “This is a Kremlin talking point. The U.S. doesn’t undermine liberal democracies overseas. Any examples otherwise would be from the Cold War.”
That’s not true, of course. The U.S. has been interfered in multiple foreign governments’ affairs since the end of the Cold War–including the affairs of at least a few liberal democracies.
(None of this should be particularly surprising; McMullin is an ex-CIA agent and the CIA is one of the foremost U.S. government agencies with their fingerprints on other countries’ internal affairs. McMullin likely feels compelled to forever act like a company man.)
Zaid then took issue with McMullin’s ahistorical narrative and attempt to parse acceptable forms of government (to interfere with) from unacceptable forms of government (to interfere with). He said:
Oh, so anything other than liberal democracy is lesser form of govt & we’re superior? And it was ok if it happened pre-1992? Seriously? Pretty pathetic Evan that you have to respond by asserting I’m offering Kremlin talking points. I’m not one of your political flunkies.
By this point, Mensch had had enough, she said:
“You’re fired.”
Mensch also felt compelled to mention that Evan sometimes-known-as McMuffin, “is not pathetic.”
Zaid, who was working for Mensch on a pro bono (free) basis, took it in stride. And promised to notify the court that same night.
Care of Glenn Greenwald, here’s the entire moment in Twitter history:
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher