Defense Secretary posts a 'How To Avoid ICE' graphic the day after a man is killed by Border Patrol.

I want to read you, before I say anything else, the three steps. The three steps are on a graphic. The graphic was posted by the Secretary of Defense of the United States, who has the authority over fifteen hundred thousand people in uniform, on Sunday morning, on his personal social account, on the public internet. The graphic is titled “How To Avoid ICE.” It contains three steps.

Step One: Don’t be here illegally. Step Two: Don’t attack ICE officers. Step Three: Obey federal and state laws.

That’s the whole graphic. Step one is the answer to the title. Step two is the answer to a different title. Step three is the prerequisite for steps one and two. The graphic is a Russian doll. The graphic is a graphic of itself.

Buddy. Buddy, listen. The day before this post, on Saturday, the day before, in Minneapolis, a thirty-seven-year-old VA nurse named Alex Pretti was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent in a physical confrontation. VA nurse. As in, the man who took care of veterans. The man who was, by occupation, looking after the same uniformed people the Defense Secretary is supposed to be looking after.

The Defense Secretary’s response, on Sunday morning, was the graphic.

I have run a casino floor. I have also dealt with my share of dead colleagues. The pattern, in the trades I have worked in, is you stop. You make a phone call. You go to the family. You don’t, the morning after a guy in your sister industry has been killed, post a cartoon about how the dead guy could have lived if only he had followed three steps.

Mr. Pretti was an American citizen. Step one of the graphic does not apply to him. Mr. Pretti was, according to the available accounts, in a physical confrontation with a Border Patrol agent who had previously been involved in two other incidents in the same neighborhood that month. The exact sequence of who hit whom is in dispute. The fact that Mr. Pretti is dead is not. Step two of the graphic, in his case, does not apply either. The legal status of the Border Patrol agent, with respect to step three, is the subject of a federal investigation now.

The graphic does not address any of this. The graphic is not designed to address any of this. The graphic is PR. PR for the agency that just killed a citizen, on a weekend, in his own city. PR signed by the Secretary of Defense.

The graphic is also, on its face, not the Defense Secretary’s lane. ICE and the Border Patrol report to Homeland Security. The lane is somebody else’s lane. The Defense Secretary, by jumping into the lane, is doing the work of the Homeland Security Department’s PR shop, which is, if you are keeping score, what’s left of the strategy of an administration that has run out of good tweets.

I’m arguing with the television. The television is showing the graphic. The graphic is bullet-pointed.