The Manchurian Manager

“Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”

This is the infamous trigger phrase from the 1962 classic, The Manchurian Candidate. It's the verbal cue the villains use to transform the brainwashed Raymond Shaw into a deadly assassin. Shaw's intended target? The next American president. The ultimate objective? To seize control of the government from within.

If the parallel isn't already clear—the title of this post should have given it away—consider this:

Raymond Shaw, a cipher plucked from obscurity, is catapulted into a position of power with a suddenness that defies explanation. His ascension is carefully orchestrated and utterly unearned. Though he appears to possess autonomy, Shaw is little more than a puppet, his strings pulled by unseen, nefarious forces. He is also a weapon, one designed to obliterate a ruling regime from within by eliminating its figurehead, paving the way for others to seize complete, unchecked control of the government.

Sound familiar?

Sleeper Agent or Sleepy Agent?

Anyone with a modicum of objectivity could see from the beginning that Aimless Amos Rojas was not hired to manage the city in any meaningful sense. Just as virtually everyone within the royal court understood that Henry VIII's appointment of Thomas Cromwell as chief minister had little to do with statecraft and everything to do with advancing his “Great Matter” (his quest for an annulment), practically all of Coral Gables could see that Amos was installed to give KFC, and thus Ariel, effective control of the city.

It's one thing for a ruling coalition to steer a selection process toward a sympathetic and amenable candidate; it's quite another for the leader of that coalition to essentially flip open a briefcase on the dais without warning, pull out a life-sized marionette fashioned after a clueless retiree, and proclaim, "Tada, behold your new city manager!" while he tugs on its strings to make it dance an Irish jig. People know a farce when they see one.

The only question, at least in my mind, was whether Amos was installed to be an active accomplice or a passive one. In other words, was he meant to function as an operative? Would he be a kind of sleeper agent who could occasionally be activated to participate in KFC’s schemes? Or would he merely serve as a figurehead, a seat warmer, a man too clueless to get in KFC’s way and too lazy to want to try? A sleepy agent, if you will.

Turns out he’s a bit of both. His apathy and laziness have become the stuff of legend around City Hall. It’s said that he delegates practically all his responsibilities to his staff while ceding all his authority to Ariel. This all tracks when you consider the fact that after a half a year on the job, the man is so painfully clueless he needed a 10- minute recess—during a budget hearing, no less—in order to look up how much the city’s budget was set to increase this year.

But that’s KFC for you. They fire a guy who could tell you from memory how much the I.T. department intended to spend on paperclips and replace him with someone who can’t make it past the cover sheet of the city’s budget without dozing off.

That said, I bet Amos knows exactly how much his paycheck increased this year.

At the same time, he’s obviously willing and able to do the work of a political operative, albeit one as witless and ham-handed as the rest of KFC. If he weren’t, our city wouldn’t have had to endure this disgrace:

For those of you with fuzzy memories, or who simply choose to tend your own gardens rather than get caught up in the incessant melodrama at City Hall, the Miami Herald article above marks the conclusion of a saga that started back in June. In fact, it began one day before Lago’s first fundraiser of the season, conveniently enough.

It all stems from a meeting in Lago’s office at City Hall, at which both Amos and assistant city manager Parjus were present. I won’t consume valuable word count with a full recap, as you can read about it here. Suffice it to say that immediately after that infamous meeting, Amos scurried off to the police station to file a complaint in which he alleged that Lago “assaulted” him during the meeting. How did Lago supposedly assault him? He took off his jacket and looked menacing.

To make matters worse, immediately after that complaint was filed—an act we can presume Amos performed alone—the substance of that very complaint was immediately and mysteriously leaked to the Herald and both of KFC’s propagan-duh blogs. One can only wonder how the details of something only Amos should have known somehow made their way to KFC’s mouthpieces. Note that each of these articles/posts is dated June 5th while the fateful meeting took place way, way back on…um…June 4th:

Wasn’t it Twain who said “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”?

Anyway, it would appear that Amos was—and pardon me for using a highly technical term of art here—full of shit. Not mistaken, confused, or misinformed. Full of actual agricultural grade shit.

As the FDLE’s investigative report states (emphasis mine):

Amos Rojas and Vince Lago provided slightly different versions of what happened in their statements. As such, Inspectors had to rely on the testimony of the only eyewitness, Alberto Parjus. After a thorough review of the facts, the criminal elements for a violation of Florida State Statute (FSS) 784.011 were not met. Whereas, the assault must be an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to a person coupled with the ability to do so. In doing so, the act created a well-founded fear that violence was imminent.

Mayor Lago made no verbal threats. The removal of a jacket and the rolled-up sleeves without the inclusion of a verbal threat to do bodily harm was subject to interpretation. Although Rojas considered that act as a show of aggression by Lago, Lago offered a reasonable explanation backed by an email document that showed the air conditioning was not working properly in his office.

Rojas was approximately five or six feet away from Mayor Lago which prevented the Mayor's ability to do imminent violence. Lastly, Rojas himself made the comments; "the threat of an assault", "I wasn't going to be the victim of an assault", and "I thought he was coming across his desk to hit me".

Lastly, Inspectors shared the facts of this case to the State Attorney's Office Eleventh Judicial Circuit who concurred with this evaluation and conclusion.

Amos isn’t some 19-year-old from rural Kentucky with a third grade education who thinks it’s the police’s job to resolve whiskey-fueled lovers’ quarrels at the trailer park. He’s a seasoned law enforcement professional with a lifetime of experience. He’s a career cop and former federal marshal who knows perfectly well what assault is—and what it isn’t.

And that’s why this ordeal is more underhanded and deceptive than many realize. Amos’s statement to the police vacillates between implicitly alleging assault and explicitly alleging the threat of assault—the latter being a nonexistent crime. Assault encompasses the threat of imminent violence, which means when Amos explicitly says he felt “the threat of an assault” or that he was “going to be the victim of an assault” what he is really saying is that he believed Lago was threatening to threaten violence.

It's difficult to dismiss this as mere sloppiness. Rather, it appears calculated. Amos' statement seems crafted to serve two purposes: it provides the press just enough to report that "the mayor of Coral Gables was accused of assault," while simultaneously giving an attorney sufficient leeway to argue, "My client never claimed he was actually assaulted; he stated he felt he was about to be assaulted. My client was merely documenting a troubling incident."

Yeah, well guess what: There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel like I’m about to be robbed by KFC. Perhaps I should hurry down to the station and file a police report.

The struggle

There's a peculiar sensation that's become increasingly familiar as I grow this newsletter—a kind of surreal absurdity that comes with constantly arguing in favor of the blindingly obvious against the patently absurd. It's as if I'm regularly having to craft thoughtful essays on why guzzling Liquid Plumber is bad or why torturing babies is wrong. This constant need to debunk utter lunacy, to argue for what should be self-evident truths, it's not just exhausting—it's mind-numbing. The futility of it all starts to weigh on you, like you're trapped in some twisted version of Sisyphus's struggle, but instead of rolling a boulder uphill, you're trying to reason with the determinedly unreasonable.

It's a sensation that washes over me every time I'm compelled to counter Dr. Castro's ghostwritten pontifications as if she were a serious public servant, as if she comprehends or cares about what’s in our city's best interests. It resurfaces when I'm forced to analyze Ariel's conduct through any lens other than that which reveals him as a wannabe career politician whose serial failures have turned him into a self-serving sociopath. It sets in like a migraine when I must pretend Kirk is anything but a rapacious Mammonist who'd auction off his last shred of principle for a quick buck.

But it truly crescendos when I’m forced to refer to Amos as “the city manager,” as if he possesses either the capacity or inclination to function as one. As if his hiring wasn’t a farcical, embarrassing, brimming-with-contempt sham on par with a North Korean election or a Stalin show trial. As if he wasn’t gift-wrapped and handed to Ariel by Steve Marin, the Gables Station and Thesis Hotel lobbyist. As you may recall, Marin is said to be one of the forces behind the failed mayoral recall, someone who, it’s widely known, is one of Amos’ good friends.

By the way, Amos himself will tell you the pivotal role that his “friends” played in his ascension to city manager:

Not for nothing, but you’ve got to love Mrs. Cruzchev hovering in the background and adjusting her black sweater like she’s Luca Brasi ready to whip out a Tommy Gun the moment one of her bosses tugs his ear.

Leave the gun, Maria. Take the cannoli.

Anyway, you're welcome to believe that a seasoned law enforcement professional—a supposedly hale and hearty former federal marshal—was suddenly overcome with fear at the sight of Lago removing his jacket. You might accept that despite being trained to commit minute details of every significant encounter to memory, ex-cop Amos accidentally muddled the critical aspects of the incident. Perhaps you'll chalk it up to mere coincidence that Lago's account aligned reasonably well with the sole independent witness's version, while Amos fumbled the important details of an altercation that had transpired only minutes earlier. You could even entertain the notion that a man meticulous enough to keep his résumé from public scrutiny until after his appointment was simultaneously careless enough to let his police statement leak to the Herald and sympathetic bloggers almost instantly. And if you're feeling especially credulous, you might attribute all of this unfolding on the eve of Lago's first fundraiser to sheer happenstance.

If you’re indeed so inclined to believe any of the above, then you’re going to love my forthcoming 10,000 word treatise on why throwing kittens into wood chippers might be considered an act of cruelty.

To the rest of you who possess even a shred of common sense, I trust you see Amos for what he is: a plant, a patsy, a political hitman. A man who has no business serving as the manager of any city—the local chapter of the Moose Lodge maybe, but not a city—but who was given the job anyway because his handlers knew that for $300K-a-year he’d be more than willing to do whatever dirty work needed doing, and from the inside no less.

He’s the Manchurian Manager.