Forbid Them Not, pp. 422-428<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nIn the morning, Cooper heads off in his Jimmy to pick up Laura and Jody and take them to the Senate hearing. It\u2019s October 18th, a Tuesday. Laura has presumably called in sick to the school where she teaches. We\u2019re not told this, though. I think Cooper has forgotten that Laura works. Because women don\u2019t<\/em> work, in his world, and she\u2019s now a man\u2019s attache.<\/p>\nFarris tells us that Cooper is being followed. When he reaches Laura\u2019s house, the car following him\u2014a tan Ford Taurus\u2014parks nearby. The man inside gets out his binoculars and places a call.<\/p>\n
\u201cEasler and another woman just got in the car with him. I think the woman was the one at the airport yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t let them get here,\u201d came the reply. The voice was husky and female, with a Hungarian accent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The voice on the phone, presumably, was Kadar. The Eastern European man has not been reading the tabloids, because he apparently never recognized Laura\u2014bewilderingly\u2014which is why he didn\u2019t trace Jody to Laura\u2019s house the night before. Cooper\u2019s nonsensical gamble\u2014that they wouldn\u2019t recognize Laura\u2014paid off. Until now, that is.<\/p>\n
Cooper pulls onto the expressway. He doesn\u2019t realize he\u2019s being followed until after Laura and Jody tell him the happy news\u2014that Jody accepted Christ. At just that moment, the Taurus cuts in front of them and they nearly crash into it. The Taurus slowed. Cooper remembers seeing a Taurus earlier, and starts freaking out. Cooper hits the gas, and as they pass the Taurus Jody and Laura recognize the man who followed them at the airport. Cooper guns it.<\/p>\n
Before long, they were going ninety miles per hour and weaving through traffic. The Taurus was right on their tail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u2019s at this point that they finally do what they should have done a lot earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura, get my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and call 911,\u201d he shouted, dodging an angry commuter as they headed under an overpass.<\/p>\n
Laura leaned over and dug in his suit jacket frantically, as Cooper continued to dodge and swerve through traffic. Pulling it out, she dialed the number and hit \u201csend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLoundoun County Emergency,\u201d said the female voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are being chased by a man who tired to run us over,\u201d Laura blurted out breathlessly. \u201cWe have a former ambassador in our car. She is likely the target.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If they were willing to call the police all along\u2014and that willing to flash Jody\u2019s former credentials\u2014why didn\u2019t they do this a lot earlier?!<\/p>\n
Anyway, now they\u2019re under fire, bullets cross the expressway. After giving their location over the phone, the local police arrange a bevy of sheriff cars a couple of miles up the highway. When they get there, Cooper pulls off to talk to the deputies while the Taurus hops the median and heads in the opposite direction, pursued by additional police cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone is trying to stop Ambassador Easler there in the back from making it to the Senate this morning. She is supposed to testify in a hearing on the Supreme Court nomination that starts in an hour,\u201d Cooper explained. \u201cThey tried to run us off the road and shot at us at least once. Look at my mirror there,\u201d he said, pointing at it with his hand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Why did Cooper think it was a good idea\u2014if he thought he was being watched\u2014for him to drive Jody to the Senate in his car? Why didn\u2019t he have Laura drive her to the Senate? Or someone else entirely? Why didn\u2019t she take a taxi under an assumed name? Do people actually tell taxi drivers their names, anyway?<\/p>\n
The news comes over the radio that the Taurus has been apprehended.<\/p>\n
\u201cHungarian diplomatic passport and a gun with empty casings in the chamber.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have a question. How has Kadar (apparently) managed to retain her position? Jody stated on television that Kadar told her to seduce Cooper in order to undermine him. Shouldn\u2019t Kadar have been ousted for ethics violations? Shouldn\u2019t she be under investigation? For that matter, why isn\u2019t Jody being investigated for ethics violations? Certainly, she\u2019d now be a cooperating witness, but she could have told Kadar no and she didn\u2019t. She is guilty of a gross abuse of her position.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said it before and I\u2019ll say it again\u2014nothing in this book makes sense. I mean, why does Kadar even care so much? Certainly, she\u2019d like to see corporal punishment banned\u2014but there are dozens of other countries party to the treaty that haven\u2019t banned corporal punishment. Farris tells us through Jody that Kadar doesn\u2019t actually care about children, she only cares about power. What<\/em> power? The committee she heads isn\u2019t particularly powerful.<\/p>\nLet\u2019s say Kadar is successful in these court cases and gets the U.S. to ban spanking, regulate homeschooling, and bar certain forms of religious teaching. What power has she gained, exactly? The court cases at issue aren\u2019t being brought by her, or by her committee\u2014they\u2019re being brought by private NGOs. No one has any reason at all to attach her name to these cases.<\/p>\n
Being charitable, I would guess that Kadar gets off on making people do what she wants them to do\u2014on manipulating people\u2014and that she thinks that if she can get her committee\u2019s interpretation of the treaty recognized as the law of the land via the supremacy clause, she can snap her fingers and watch Americans dance. On policy related to children, that is.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no way to figure this that isn\u2019t a bizarrely weird stretch. Besides, if Kadar was always after that kind of power\u2014where she can snap her fingers and watch others dance\u2014becoming a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child was a weird kind of long game to play. That committee doesn\u2019t have a whole lot of power. Those appointed to it tend to be individuals with a long history of work in children\u2019s policy or family law, not power hungry climbers.<\/p>\n
But. Back to the present. A deputy takes Cooper back to Leesburg to identify the Hungarian. This seems odd. Why not send Laura back? Since Laura wasn\u2019t driving, she got a better look at the man than Cooper did, and she could also identify him as the man who was following them at the airport\u2014and she doesn\u2019t really need to be at the Senate hearing, while Cooper has a good reason to be there. But then, perhaps this does make sense, given that nothing in this book makes sense.<\/p>\n
They arrange for another deputy to drive Laura and Jody to the Senate, with two other sheriff\u2019s cruisers \u201cto provide both a front and rear shield.\u201d This is nice, but a bit late in coming.<\/p>\n
Cooper handling this situation this way is yet another reason he should be fired by his clients. He\u2019s putting himself and his fianc\u00e9 in harm\u2019s way for no apparent reason, and risking Jody\u2019s life too\u2014which seems to pertain to their case\u2014playing amateur spy evader and getaway driver. This whole situation is just such<\/em> a bad idea.<\/p>\nI have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If they were willing to call the police all along—and that willing to flash Jody’s former credentials—why didn’t they do this a lot earlier?!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":40693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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