The rope-a-dope dope

.....My dictionary defines “rope-a-dope” as follows:

a boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes, goading an opponent to throw tiring ineffective punches.

.....At about 6:00 p.m. today, someone wrote a comment to the recent “Williams” piece in the OC Voice that asserts that the timesheets are not really timesheets. They mean virtually nothing. (You can read the details at the end of the last post.)
.....Well, maybe. Certainly, that would explain Phil Greer’s (that’s Williams’ shyster lawyer) recent remark that the “discrepancy” situation that we’ve pursued is "much ado about nothing."
.....When I first read that, I recall thinking, “well, if it’s easily explained, why not explain it?” Why not put an end to the concerns?
.....Well, maybe this is just some kind of rope-a-dope.
.....If so, then, if the point was to protect Williams (by hurting his critics?), it would appear to have backfired badly. For it is reasonable to suppose that Vern Nelson would not have posted his damning overview of the scandal that is Williams’ county career were it not for the piece in “OC Voice” about the apparent timesheet discrepancy.
.....My guess: people in the know are aware that Williams is an incompetent and a buffoon whose antics are tolerated by virtue of the odd loyalty code of the OC Republican rat pack, soulless Fuentes division. But, for that kind of guy, the worst thing that can happen is people stopping to pay attention to him and his miserable record. It just stinks from beginning to end: outrageous travel expenses, cronyism, incompetence, inefficiency, stupid remarks, unfortunate associations, disastrously faithful official headshots, trails of drool, malapropisms, transparently idiotic explanations, an unseemly love of “pie” (see pic above), and so on.
.....The Orange Juice Blog ain’t much, but everybody around here in politics reads it. And today’s litany of Williams’ record of buffoonery and cheesy excess has got to hurt. Usually, one only catches glimpses of Bailiff Boy: his clown pants, his clown nose. His clown face. His clown toes.
.....Today’s OJ blog post brought it all together into one big horrible clown portrait, with “Republican” written across the top.
.....Maybe it was all rope-a-dope.
.....If so, Williams is the rope-a-dope dope.

Photos: Williams is "pleased as punch" about being served pie by Raghu "Toady" Mathur; Williams clowning around at the office; Tom Fuentes giving me a lethal look.