My National Review paesano and friend Jay Nordlinger attacks John Thune for expressing this: that his Trump-critic colleagues – namely Senators Jeff Flake and Bob “Iran Deal” Corker – should keep such criticisms within the Republican Caucus; that they and others would not publicly attack Trump, nor, I assume, attack Trump supporters.
Frankie Pentangeli, call your office: Jay equates Thune’s stand with the Mafia’s omertà. As anyone in our Godfather-drenched culture knows, the omertà is a two-part blood oath. The first part is silence. Silence about the doings of your fellow mobsters, even if your buttoned lips result in your going to jail or suffering other privations. (By the way, this isn’t just an Italian-gangster protocol: The silence vow reaches back centuries, and is alive and well in various didn’t-see-nuthin’ neighborhoods where the locals will not rat out hoodlums to cops.) The second part is that breaking the omertà is punishable by death. That’s where the oath’s blood comes in.
I find Jay’s analogy wrong. Very. And a wild overreaction. It’s not as if Thune’s statement is beyond criticism. But let’s face it: What Thune has asked for is nothing more than a version of Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment vow to not speak ill of any Republican.
As a former candidate, elected official, local party chairman, GOP envelope-licker, donor, et al., I find this Commandment of general good use, but refuse to hold it sacrosanct, if only because it can serve as a sanctuary for folks afraid to deal with harsh realities, and can prove a disservice to constituents. I have abided by the Commandment when merited, which is usually the case, but have broken it on occasion, with a very clear conscience. So have far greater men than me: In Connecticut alone, we still thank the Almighty for Bill Buckley, BuckPac, and those good Republicans who called out and defeated gasbag Republican senator Lowell Weicker in 1988.
All that said, to make as if Thune’s statement is some sort of Cosa Nostra doctrine, or to imply that it even resembles such, or that it is an implied threat (threats being in the oath’s DNA), and then to wrap the criticism of Thune in the flag – as if attacking Thune is . . . the American thing to do, which must mean not attacking him is unpatriotic, or, must mean that those who agree with Thune are somehow omerti – is shocking.
I’m siding with Freud here: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes the very human wish to keep controversies in-house is just that. It’s not a sign of the Corleone Apocalypse.