Never Trumper Plays the Fool After Desperate Attack on Ron DeSantis Backfires Badly

On Monday, Ron DeSantis’ reelection campaign released a video called “Top Gov,” which was a play off of the blockbuster movies “Top Gun” (1986) and “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022).

Because it featured DeSantis looking like a bad a** as he wore aviator gear and at one point sat in what looked like a fighter jet (along with his young son) as he talked about taking on critics including the liberally biased media, it triggered The Usual Suspects, including Stuart Stevens, whose claims to infamy involve being a senior adviser to the pedophile apologists at the Democrat-funded Lincoln Project, and shamelessly using one of DeSantis’ daughters to attack him.

Stevens made clear on Tuesday that he was not done with the dumb swipes at DeSantis, as displayed in this attempt at fat-shaming the popular Florida governor and alleging he was “playing military dress up”:

If anybody had any doubts why @GovRonDeSantis likes to play military dress up and act like a tough guy, this is what he actually looks like when not hiding behind a condominium sized podium. Ten pounds in a five pound bag. pic.twitter.com/djnE5okG2H

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) August 23, 2022

Stevens was quickly educated on the fact that DeSantis wasn’t merely “playing military dress up”:

“Play military dress up”

Should he wear the fatigues he wore while in Fallujah advising SEALs and Green Berets? https://t.co/Qzrml9ju3Z pic.twitter.com/eOp38k9mhQ

— Jesse Hunt (@JJHunt10) August 23, 2022

The former “top strategist” for Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential campaign was also reminded by my colleague and RedState cartoonist Jim Thompson that he was hardly in a position to be mocking someone’s weight:

Stevens is prick and a punk.
After DeSantis finished at Yale and Harvard Law he joined the Navy. Served with SEAL Team 1 in country as JAG advisor.

Stevens went to film school. Then helped Mitt go down in flames. He's the fat guy on the right. https://t.co/JNY4jYEK2Z pic.twitter.com/bkkC2MgsQQ

— Jimmy'Tooner (@JimmySportToons) August 23, 2022

On Wednesday, Stevens doubled down by acknowledging DeSantis’ military veteran status but by boiling him down to merely being a “military lawyer” who “flew a desk,” and then accusing his defenders of claiming DeSantis was a Navy SEAL (which no one had done).

“[DeSantis] was a military lawyer. That’s honorable service. What’s not is trying to claim he was a Navy Seal [sic]. What’s ridiculous is his playing Top Gun dress up when he flew a desk. But if he thinks that America is crying out for this, give it a go,” he wrote.

Hours later, in a failed “gotcha” attempt, Stevens linked to the video of DeSantis referring to Biden senior medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci as a “little elf” and then suggested that maybe DeSantis’ defenders had a point after all about insulting someone’s looks.

“All the [DeSantis] trolls, professional and amateur, Russian and otherwise, clutched their pearls at thought of laughing at DeSantis for looking like a Macy’s Day Float. ‘Attacking someone for how they look shows you have no ideas!’ they shrieked. Maybe they have a point,” Stevens proclaimed.

It’s too bad for Stevens that the only point he made was to provide further evidence that he is a total tool and loser who completely missed the point, because the bulk of the pushback was over his jab about DeSantis’ military service.

In fact, since the ad was released, that appears to be an emerging theme with DeSantis’ haters – that he didn’t really serve honorably because he was “only a lawyer” or something, as was evidenced by this cheap shot from former Tampa Bay Times “reporter” Craig Pittman.

“[DeSantis] was a lawyer, not a fighter pilot. Not a combat hero like John McCain, Bob Dole or ‘Poppy’ Bush. I’d sure love to see the citation on that Bronze Star, btw — a veteran told me it’s become the military version of the participation trophy,” keyboard warrior Pittman snarked.

LOL. Imagine thinking “a veteran told me” makes you an expert on military matters.

I’ll leave the debate on the Bronze Star to others with more knowledge on such matters, but according to my impeccable sources, the fact that DeSantis was involved in Special Ops and Intel during his time in Iraq means there are things he was involved in that cannot be discussed, things that might have been the basis for him eventually being awarded the Bronze Star. I dunno.

As I said before when DeSantis was criticized for the way he sat in a chair during a Fox News special, if these types of attacks on him are the best his “principled” detractors have to offer, then I’d say he’s in pretty good shape – pun intended.