CSotD: Sure, we fired on Fort Sumter. So what?
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There’s a line to be drawn somewhere between political commentary and personal ridicule, and I think that, if Kirk Walters (KFS) had only shown Greene in the strait jacket, foaming at the mouth, it might be unfair.
Except that it’s not as if she had campaigned on fiscal prudence and only later did we discover that she thought her cocker spaniel was the reincarnation of Clark Gable.
Her insane beliefs were politically relevant and were at the very center of her campaign.
And while it seems pointless to keep quoting Moynihan about how you’re allowed to have your own opinions but not your own facts, it also seems pointless to expect the Republican party to rein in this raving looney.
Walters does well to quote McConnell’s “Nevertheless she persisted,” because the Speaker said it when Republicans blocked Elizabeth Warren from reading Coretta Scott King’s letter criticizing Jeff Sessions, citing Senate Rule XIX, sections 2 and 3:
As Steve Sack (MplsST) notes, Republican whining over “Cancel Culture” should make us all laugh, though he only points out one victim of the phenomenon, not the Dixie Chix, Rob Rogers or David Horsey, and there are more.
It’s wrong to take a knee to protest police brutality because it insults our boys in blue, but if a cop gets killed trying to protect the Capitol, it doesn’t ruffle feathers on the right side of the aisle.
And before we leave the topic of “Cancel Culture,” there was a darkly humorous exchange on Newsmax, in which one of their newsreaders apologized to the My Pillow Guy for cutting him off the other night.
Mike Lindell was repeating the idiotic, paranoid lies for which the network had already broadcast an abject public apology to blunt a threatened lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems.
But apparently you get a lot of blowback for cutting off a darling of the lunatic fringe, and when ratings matter more than truth, well, click here to watch a man disgrace himself and his profession.
“Mike is a friend of this network,” he assures us.
I don’t doubt that. But, as noted here before, real journalists don’t have friends.
Though I’ve had a cordial relationship with Scott Stantis (ChiTrib), despite the fact that he criticizes Democrats for wanting to make Trump look bad for raising a mob and setting them loose on the Capitol in a desperate attempt to overturn the results of the election.
Stantis is right, of course, that it wouldn’t knock Trump out of office, though it does seem that, if the Founders wanted presidents to be permitted to commit treason in their last weeks in office, they’d have said so in the Constitution.
Lalo Alcaraz (AMS) points out the holes in the logic, and, besides, while impeachment is used to remove someone from office, it can be used to keep him from coming back.
It’s also a pretty good way to determine which Senators oppose sedition and which ones approve the attempted coup.
One alternative is to file criminal charges and have a trial before a jury that does not include the president’s co-conspirators, but, then again, impeachment would get everyone in Congress formally on the record.
Loyal Americans deserve to know who’s ready to overthrow our system, but the people who reject our form of government should also know who is on their side.
Impeachment is a win-win, despite Marco Rubio’s desire for us to ignore the rabid maniac behind the curtain:
Or, to put it another way, leave Marjorie alone! She’s a human!
Or, to put it another other way, here’s our
Juxtaposition of the Day
If you want a historical precedent, look back to when someone thought it would be a good idea to have the Hell’s Angels provide security at the concert in Altamont.
Now imagine that, despite that fiasco, the rock bands had kept up the partnership for all their concerts.
The voters are responsible for who is in power, certainly. But political parties are responsible for who they put forward as candidates and who they support once in office.
The GOP isn’t following W’s mangled message, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, won’t get fooled again.”
Trump even had the nerve to cite the story of the snake who, warmed in the bosom of a foolish woman, bit and killed her, explaining that she knew what he was when she offered him shelter.
And yet they turn their heads and pretend that they just cannot see.
In a scathing Bulwark column, Amanda Carpenter answers Rubio’s wish that we ignore Greene and don’t make her famous:
Oh, how exactly could it be that Rep. Greene has been getting famous? Perhaps because she found footing in a Republican party that tolerates people getting famous, raising money, and elevating themselves off deranged conspiracy theories? Could that be it? Could it be that she is a member of Congress who has been fully embraced by the former Republican president of the United States and was paraded by him on the campaign trail in hopes of re-electing two Republican senators last month?
The GOP may whine about “Cancel Culture” when a publisher declines to pass along lies, but they embrace it themselves when they ask us to ignore their failure to discipline their own party members.
As Ann Telnaes (WashPo) puts it, Greene is only a symptom. The rot runs through a party that addresses her toxic delusions with empty words.
It’s no different than when Congress cowered before Joe McCarthy until Joseph Welch spoke up:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
It was like Dorothy dowsing the witch with a bucket of water. Decent people in that hearing, and around the country, shook themselves as if they were awakening from a nightmare, and McCarthy’s reign of terror was over.
Well, don’t hold your breath. As Kevin Siers (N&O) notes, these people are already fully awake, aware and responsible for what has been happening.
If they aren’t standing up, it’s because they don’t want to.
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