DON'T BE SO SURE THAT SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE IS GOING DOWN

I can't deny that this looks bad for David Clarke, full-time loudmouth and -- in whatever time he has left between gun-nut speeches and Fox TV appearances -- sheriff of Milwaukee County:

Controversial Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who this week announced he will be joining Donald Trump's administration as assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, plagiarized sections of his 2013 master's thesis on US security, a CNN KFile review has found.

Clarke, a visible surrogate for Trump during the campaign known for his incendiary rhetoric, earned a master's degree in security studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In his thesis, "Making U.S. security and privacy rights compatible," Clarke failed to properly attribute his sources at least 47 times.

In all instances reviewed by CNN's KFile, Clarke lifts language from sources and credits them with a footnote, but does not indicate with quotation marks that he is taking the words verbatim.

Last night on Twitter, I questioned whether plagiarism would compel Clarke to withdraw. I was reminded of this:

@nomoremister It kept Monica Crowley out of an administration job.

— Gary Legum (@GaryLegum) May 21, 2017

Yes, but Crowley didn't lash out at her attackers. When she was accused of plagiarizing parts of her Ph.D. dissertations and parts of one of her books, she "declined to comment." She treated the revelations the way you'd treat them if you were the appointee of a normal president. She didn't understand that Donald Trump is not normal. He doesn't expect his underlings to maintain a dignified silence or issue carefully worded responses when facing accusations.

Trump likes people who fight back, however ill-advisedly. Immediately after Trump's inauguration, he put pressure on press secretary Sean Spicer to defend Trump's ridiculous assertion that he'd hard a larger inaugural crowd than Barack Obama in 2009. Later, Trump was angry when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself in matters pertaining to Russiagate.

So far, Clarke isn't making that mistake:

This @CNN hack @KFILE oppo research MO is to accuse plagiarism. I'm next. Did it to Rand Paul, Monica Crowley et al. https://t.co/KgoHKermpe

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017

Ample evidence of my previous tweet on @CNN political hack @KFILE. Guy is a sleaze bag. I'm on to him folks. https://t.co/D1kV8kg80G

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017

I just sayin'. This "hired gun" Kaczynski did the same with me". Do I need to put that in quotation marks? https://t.co/aLxC3OCevQ

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 21, 2017

There's also a lot of higher-profile news happening now -- Trump's overseas trip, the series of wild news stories of the past couple of weeks. The Crowley revelations happened before the inaugural, when the major Trump-related stories were about personnel matters.

But the main reason Clarke might very well survive is that he spends his entire waking life in attack mode. Crowley, even though she's done her share of attacking as a Fox pundit and right-wing hack, isn't a rage generator by nature. Clarke does it as naturally as breathing. I'm betting Trump will have his back.

We already know that presiding over a court system jail where a prisoner died of dehydration after being denied water for a week hasn't prevented Clarke from being appointed. I think he could survive this, too.