Several threads of popular culture come together here in this post — but at a very low level.

• Consider the low reputation of lawyers — the reputation that launched a thousand lawyer jokes (“What do you call a thirty-foot pyramid of lawyer skulls? A good beginning”).

• Consider the low reputation of Ronald C. Weich, which limbos under even the low bar that the profession as a whole sets. Weich is best known for a lying letter to Congress that may yet land him in jail.

• Consider the low reputation of Congress, which is currently tormenting Weich but where he served most of his life as a toady staffer for various gun-control-happy Senators, including his mentor Ted Kennedy. It’s a puzzlement, though, whether Weich’s turpitudinous reputation drags Congress’s down or the other way around… they’re both in that “residue in the bottom of the barrel when all useful has been drained” region. Where they look up to see the whale sign at the bottom of the sea. Or the oil from the BP oil spill, which as the Huffington Post noted, had a higher approval rating than Congress.

• Consider the low reputation of  the University of Baltimore Law School. It doesn’t exactly crack the top ten. It doesn’t exactly crack the top 100. (Maybe on a less-rigourous ranking? Nope, not there either. But it made this list!).  In a world where even law school deans say a shakeout is coming, it’s not well-positioned to survive. The last Dean left amid acrimony . Students leave with massive debt — thanks in part to the University raking off over half of that tuition right off the top, leaving the law school running on fumes — but few job prospects. Big Law, the employment which best would let the students retire their enormous loans, doesn’t roll out the red carpet for grads of Tier Z Baltimore. The continued accreditation of the school is threatened.

We didn't shrink this pic of Weich -- his head is that small on his official DOJ bio.

So guess who’s the new Dean of Baltimore Law? And why? Let’s cut to the tape (Fox News):

“During this time of considerable transition in legal education and the legal profession, it is important to have leadership with integrity and vision,” University of Baltimore President Robert Bogomolny said in a statement issued Wednesday.

He said it’s “important to have leadership with integrity and vision.” But that costs money. So he hired Ron Weich instead.

There is one ray of light in this for somebody: Bal’more ganstas, thuggees and other criminal defendants. Since the only way Baltimore Law grads will ever be able to repay their loans is with public-service loan forgiveness, they’re gonna be all the $40k/year public defenders in Maryland for ever. And so every con enroute to the North Branch Correctional Institution in the Old Line State will hace a slam-dunk ineffectiveness-of-counsel appeal in the bag: “My lawyer was a Baltimoron.”  Or better yet, “My lawyer was a Baltimoron that trained under Weich.”  That metallic sound you hear is the cell doors on Death Row springing open.