For All They Care

 

You know, there was a little part of me that thought I'd write a little bit about the Jack Smith 1/6 report, but honestly--no. People who care already have a good idea what it's all about (and can even tell you about missing pieces FWIW) and people who don't care--don't care. I've developed a kind of "you can lead a horse to water" sense of these revelations, and I don't think I could find a better example of why than today's Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. 

Hegseth came into the hearing with a cloud of controversies hanging over his nomination. But after he was questioned for more than four hours, Republicans came away feeling optimistic that Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army combat veteran, would be confirmed to lead the Pentagon.

“He comported himself extremely well and made a strong argument for why he ought to be the next secretary of defense,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., adding he will “work quickly” to get Hegseth confirmed.

I would like to know what Senator Thune thought the "strong argument" was, because I'm not sure the hearing actually demonstrated that he was in any way particularly well-qualified or that he had some unique qualities that overrode his various personal controversies. But if what we have is a not-especially well-qualified serial adulterer and accused rapist who bankrupted a couple of NGO's being selected by a not-especially well-qualified serial adulterer and accused rapist who bankrupted several companies, well, you might as well talk about the weather as judge him on any set of serious criteria. 

Sure, "advise and consent" is part of a US senator's job. Sure, you could try and say that having an unfit person running the DOD is a national security problem. But you see that sign in the picture up above--where the word "military" is misspelled? 

The Bland Man

A number of tonight's false claims at the RNC came from Vice President Mike Pence, CNN's @ddale8 says.

"Pence said again that Biden wants 'open borders' ... It's just wrong. Biden does not support completely unrestricted migration" https://t.co/TnNCUL7WnK pic.twitter.com/J4shr0iOzx

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 27, 2020

I'll never understand the folks who thought Donald Trump would replace Mike Pence with Nikki Haley (or anyone else) because, for one thing, Mike Pence looks at him like a dog looks at a man with bacon in his pocket, and for another, Pence is unsweetened porridge. He's dull. He will never, not ever, not on pain of death, not for love or money, upstage Trump. He's an unrepentant liar, but he does it without a single muscle in his shrunken apple-head face betraying him in the slightest. He puts the "bland" in blandishments.

He gently, ever so gently, acts as a figleaf to the normals that the Trump Priapus isn't going to poke their eyes out with any such horrors as the very real sexual harassment and rape allegations, such as the one that Trump right now is refusing to offer his DNA via cheek-swab to refute (because, would it? one might very well ask).

Does he mislead--yeah, of course. He offers a narrative of violence in Trump's America that ignores that a fallen police officer was killed by a right-wing Boogaloo Boi, not by the largely peaceful BLM protesters. He referred to violence in Kenosha, but did not mention that Kenosha Kyle is a MAGA. He lied about the Veteran's Choice act, signed by Barack Obama, even though Trump himself was called on this egregious lie just recently, but in the meanwhile, he had elderly vets in his audience with no masks or apparent social distancing, because, well, I guess their sacrifice for their country should extend even to this?

That's warped.

I've been comfortable telling everyone about what a monster Trump is, because, fuck, low-hanging fruit and all that. But Mike Pence is no less monstrous for being the Invisible Man to Trump's obvious Mr. Hyde.

So anyway, in a bullshit evening populated by bland people who told us stupid things like "Biden/Harris are radicals who would ban farm animals" and that Donald Trump really genuinely cares about human beings because he might have called one of his campaign staff after an operation (which refers to one person, useful to him, only, and not the actual broad swath of persons with pre-existing conditions), Mike Pence showed how he is the clutch person in the Trump Administration, because he excels at mendacity and boringness at once. One could have muted his speech and ignored closed captions, and come away with as much of an impression as having listened. He said a great deal of nothing, and a lot of it was untrue and potentially dangerously so.

He even fixed his mouth to say one of the dumbest things I think could even be made a campaign slogan, "We will make American Great Again, Again."  Like, for a sterling blink if you missed it bit, we were made great, but then the COVID-19, and all the deaths, the job losses, the failed businesses, the unemployment, the evictions and a wave of foreclosures and whatnot (which we are not actually, if one was any competent prognosticator, even barely done with) but forget all the things that happened on Trump's watch including the racial divisions and the carnage and thhhhhaaaaatttttt sort of thing.

I don't care how bland this mofo is, you don't get to recover a fumble, regain a few yards, and ask for infinite downs. The line would be more plausibly delivered by the late, great Leslie Nielsen. Who, I think, would play Pence better than Pence does. For laughs, because taking Pence seriously is a painful business.

Into What, Though?

DANA BASH: You criticized Obama for 'failed leadership' when 2 people in the US died from Ebola. Nearly 130,000 are dead from coronavirus. So is Trump showing failed leadership?@SenJoniErnst: "No. I think that the president is stepping forward." pic.twitter.com/2KDUPpjL2Y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 5, 2020

"Stepping forward", I guess, is the nicest way to say "he's not doing nothing", but the journey he's supposed to be stepping forward on should have started months ago, and it really does feel like Trump is being praised like a baby for taking any steps at all. This kind of cowardice could be chalked up to an election year, but it's really how Republicans have been regarding Trump all the time, since he started. And yet, Trump wants to stop supporting testing (which he still blames for the high case numbers, instead of, well, there being an awful lot of cases) and to end the ACA.

It's shabby and a lack of leadership--from Trump and Ernst. And more, besides. Like Mark Meadows:

Mark Meadows on Fox defends Trump false claim that “99 percent” of covid cases are totally harmless. “I don’t even know it’s a generalization,” saying stats show “vast majority of people are safe from this.” He said “risks are extremely low” for those without serious ailments

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 6, 2020

Tell that to the 41-year old healthy Broadway actor who just died after months struggling with this disease. Tell that to his family.

Cowards.

UPDATE: WOW. The White House message, tho'.

View from the RNC Convention 3

More people probably tuned into hear from Chachi Arcola from Happy Days than did for US Senator Joni Ernst or Lt. General Michael Flynn. Funny story that--you wouldn't have heard much different.

Wah wah wah.

Bedbugs and Bread Bags

Sometimes I think us East Coasters are a little sort-changed when it comes to the SOTU speech and the rebuttals--it's late by the time all the coverage is done. I have to get up for my paying gig the next day, and I usually have to get to bed before I've been able to properly ruminate on the President's speech, let alone the rebuttal. Especially not if there are five rebuttals.

What is a blogger to make of five rebuttals from the opposition party? Given that there's an "official" GOP response, I have to guess that the "takes" from different "rebuttals" have to be taken individually, on their own merits, and not view them cumulatively. I mean--would that be fair--five against one? (Well, yeah. I did think Obama did a heckuva job. Easily worth about five of those other speeches.)

See, I'm not what you'd call a pro, like Ron "No 'I' in Leadership, well, except that one" Fournier. And the benefit of blogging for seven years is that my regulars pretty much know where I stand on the major points President Obama brought up (raising the minimum wage--for it, equal pay for women--for it, addressing climate change--for it, land wars in the middle east--against'em), so I just feel like a point by point of the SOTU itself is pointless. In general, he looked more at home giving the speech this year and his zinger about winning two elections himself took some of that expectation that Dems losing the midterms overall would leave him "checked out" and lame-ducking it until January 2017 away. He's still "all in" as far as I can tell. But that's just my opinion.