Never been such times as these before, I swear

The Column: 09.09.22

It’s good for your breathing, the deep breaths you must draw at the systemic shamelessness of Mar-il-Legal, the casual heist of government stuff, the FBI arriving to take away the top-secret documents and all, the refusal by the Former to acknowledge error, his wholesale abuse of the FBI, and then the weaselish dictum by the Trump judge to hold the DOJ at bay, it was breathtaking, like watching a hippo climb a tree.

The sorting of material, separating articles of clothing from top-secret documents into their own piles, seems to be a problem for DJT, according to the FBI. Surely the man’s valet puts the socks in the sock drawer and not with the golf balls and cheeseburgers, but in his official dealings DJT seems prone to chaos.

Orderliness is no requirement for holding high office. There’s no reason candidates should offer their closets for inspection. I doubt that Ron DeSantis stores piles of Florida state secrets along with admiring articles and a golf cap given him by the emir of Qatar. It would be good to know, however, if he has ever been in charge of four or more children under the age of five for a three-day weekend, unassisted, I’d be impressed more than by his strutting around rewriting Florida’s school curriculum.

Do our elected leaders not realize that we can see through them? They are frosted glass. Their attempts at nobility do not impress: it’s like watching a man throw horseshoes at a pine tree. There is no ding, just a crunch.

This should be high season for political ridicule. (Where are you, Bill Maher?) John Fetterman will win Pennsylvania by his wicked mockery of the hapless Oz, who said he grew up south of Philly by which he meant New Jersey. The man is lost in the fog of his own celebrity. Tony Evers looks good in Wisconsin thanks to his use of a photo of Ron Johnson with his mouth open wide enough to swallow a softball. And Herschel Walker in the Senate? The man does not bear close inspection.

A master of insult was Winston Churchill, a struggling politician, an inspiring wartime leader, and then a magnificent author, who in his early years said of his fellow conservative: “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived.” Brilliant, how the polite “no ill” perfectly sets up the throat chop.

The Former, who has been trying for years to master the Churchillian scowl, is seriously humor-impaired. There are unemployed joke writers around but he never thought to hire one. He was a name-caller on a fourth-grade level (Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary) or he slapped a LOSER sticker on someone’s back and let it go at that. So much venom and no fangs to make it work for him.

The Brits do insult so much better. So we should steal from them. “A shiver looking for a spine to run up” could be applied to Mitch McConnell just as well as to Edward Heath, the original target. “A sheep in sheep’s clothing” fits any number of people. “He eats used toilet tissue in the hope that he will someday get used to the taste” fits Kevin McCarthy perfectly. And “He is the only man I know who immatures as he ages” is the Former in twelve words. It’s a poke in the snoot that disarms even as it raises a welt.

There is some precedent for insult in American politics. Lincoln and Douglas dusted each other up. In 1932 Democrats called Hoover a “timid capon” and Hoover came back and called Roosevelt “a chameleon on plaid.” The problem today is the amiable Biden. He was in the Senate too long and, coming from a safe blue state, he believed in bipartisanship. His Philly speech about MAGA was devoid of insult. Not a funny line in it.

MAGA has portrayed Joe as senile, a mumbling geriatric, and his civility only plays into their hands. The way for Joe to gain broad public respect is to say, “I wish Donald Trump no ill. It would be unfortunate were he to be hit in the head by a golf ball. But it would be a catastrophe for the country if someone gave him CPR.” No need to trot up the steps to Air Force One, you just kick the hippo where it hurts.

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We are looking forward to the next A Prairie Home Companion American Revival at The Anthem, a fabulous new venue on the Wharf in Washington, D.C., on October 21st (how fun to be in in D.C. two weeks before the midterm elections).

Join us, won’t you?! For Tickets - CLICK HERE