Having beaten the definition of THOSE days to death, let’s address what happened when I innocently tried to be a couch potato. Basically everything went wrong because I’d picked one of THOSE days.
Tucker Carlson had just interviewed Putin. Tucker was fired by Fox News and now gets more hits than Fox News and several other media outlets combined. Obi-Wan Kenobi told Darth Vader “If you strike me down, I’ll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi-Wan is a wimp and a loser compared to Tucker. Tucker didn’t just outshine Darth Vader, he routinely gets more hits than his former employer and the whole fucking market combined. When you fire a guy and he soars while you take a dump on your own shoe… it’s you that failed, not him.
An interview with Putin is this thing that used to exist in the old days; journalism. Tucker landed the interview that nobody else could because he doesn’t have a political party’s hand up his ass like a fucking Muppet. This happened shortly before I settled down to vegetate.
At first I was happy. An adult thing with adult interest for actual adults! What a fine distraction! Neither Putin nor Carlson are drooling idiots so I’d find a transcript and read it. Tragically, I’m literate. I’m from a generation that doesn’t need to be spoon fed every fucking word. I much prefer 30 minutes reading a transcript to two hours watching dudes sitting in chairs. (Who thinks as slow as people talk?)
There were a zillion links but 99% of what I saw were carefully selected “clips” of “talking points”. These were complete with reactions by “journalists”. Journalists are skull splittingly stupid. I’ve scraped smarter things off my shoe. Nobody needs or wants some ass-clown who took journalism because it’s the easiest college degree (aside from education) “interpreting” what I can read for my own damn self!
(Note: I delivered newspapers as a child. I read the paper I delivered. Journalists seemed about average back then. I was 12. I need to repeat that because it’s important: half a lifetime ago the giants of print media back when it was a legit industry seemed more or less “average” to a 12 year old. Notice they didn’t impress me with their wisdom of depth of thought. If you can’t outthink a 12 year old delivering a paper for a few cents a shot, you’re a nobody. Since then the press has declined considerably. They’re now semi-sentient herd mammals who can do naught but cut and paste press releases.)
I really wanted a transcript. Go to the primary source if you can! If I wanted to know what the New York Times editorial board thought of a Putin interview I’d bend over and let them insert it rectally… which appears how most people get their news. (Credit to Vox Day who linked to an automated English translation based on Russian media. Unfortunately, machine translation is not great for complex speech. Putin wasn’t talking like the mainstream media or a third grader (roughly the same vocabulary) so the slurred translation was less than ideal.) I grumbled about it; probably sounding like an old man bitching about kids on his lawn. Then I gave up.
I started watching videos of clever rednecks rebuilding antique tractors. They were short videos. Each time a video ended I had to wade back into the interface to find another. As if the algorithm had gone into heat, my screen started loading up with non-tractor bullshit. One of THOSE days was just winding up.
The proximate cause of the bullshit was the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report. He listed many instances of Biden flat out breaking the law relating to classified documents (as Obama’s VP Biden didn’t have the powers of President in relation to classified materials but Biden decided he could do whatever the fuck he wanted because since when do rules apply to anyone named Biden?). Hur punted doing anything about it. Raise your hand if that surprised you. Then hit yourself with your raised hand, dumbass.
So we all knew what would happen because the relationship between “law” and “executive branch is now based on partly affiliation. The interesting part was Hur’s novel excuse for inaction. He said that Biden would present himself to any jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. By some interpretation of the law that isn’t written in actual words, everything is fine if you’re old and infirm… and of course a connected member of one of two parties.
Hur’s report is just “the Comey defense / excuse” so I hardly even noticed. But Robert Hur upgraded to the improved Mark 2 variant and that was neat. I note that it’s also delivered several months earlier than usual. More timely delivery than Door Dash. Biden got his “it’s a Dem so we’re not going pursue it” announcement in February of an election year. Hillary Clinton had to wait until July of her election year; which wasn’t ideal timing to use James Comey’s identical conclusion for the purposes of her coronation.
Also Hur (as fitting an improved turbo powered Mark 2 variant) gave a reason. Hur said Biden clearly broke the law but Biden is just too clueless and cuddly to prosecute. Hillary didn’t get that. Comey gave no reason at all. He just said “she broke the law but let’s face it nobody’s going to prosecute”.
It would have been nice if all that bullshit happened on a day when I wasn’t watching TV.
It didn’t immediately vanish like I expected. Hur said Biden was non compos mentis. It means “of unsound mind” and he handed it over like a get out of jail free card. If someone gave me an “out” for a crime I’d done, I’d take it! Hur also said Biden had broken the law “willfully”. Comey said Hillary didn’t have “intent” (though particular crimes with classified documents don’t require intent). Hur basically said that Biden had will in the past but if he’s currently non compos mentis and no longer possesses will.
That’s a thing that happens… though rarely. Suppose ten years ago you shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. That’s murder! Possibly it’s murder even if a Democratic politician does it. Like if, I’m just spitballing here, it had happened to Epstein, which is silly because of course that was all totally on the level. Anyway, if you went on the lam to evade prosecution and held out until you subsequently turned into a drooling idiot who doesn’t know what day of the week it is… you might walk on the grounds of incompetency. (Note: I’m not suggesting you break any such laws… even if you’re connected enough that the law doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t change the fact that immorality has it’s own punishment.)
Anyway it’s generally illegal to break the law, as Hur had noted Biden really did. (And Comey noted Hillary really did.) But if you’re lucky they’ll dither a long time until you can barely remember the name of your pudding cup. (Which was not true of Hillary but is likely true of Biden.) It’s at least theoretically possible to say “Biden is non compos mentis and we don’t want to convict a dude who can’t remember his own name, so lets leave him here to watch Matlock”.
I thought Hur’s investigation would be memory holed. Coverups are nothing new and also Biden has a good shot at the “I’m too damn clueless to be held responsible” defense. He’s had years to master the perfectly calibrated level of (in)competence needed to do stupid things and then act like he had nothing to do with him. If anyone can thread the needle between “too fucked up to understand a court proceeding” and “super sharp president that’s definitely who you want accessing the nuclear football” it’s Biden.
We’ve seen the “barely alive / fully in control” cover up before. Biden could consult with the ghost of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The press reported RGB was sharp as a tack and winning chess competitions while preparing for a triathlon? They did this for at least a few years when she could barely fog a mirror. Who knows how many staffers for how many years functioned as an extra-legal committee to exercise RGB’s official authority?
They kept RGB out of live events and propped up in a corner in a real life Weekend at Bernies plot for years. So far they’ve done the same with Biden. RGB was intellectually flawless until she finally dropped dead. Biden is a tower of brilliance, just ask him. One thing brilliant people do is tell you how brilliant they are. (That’s sarcasm y’all and it applies to both Trump and Biden.)
By the way, if you think a decrepit American president propped up by a dutiful (or power hungry) wife is a new thing, it’s not. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke on October 2, 1919 and stayed in power for the rest of his term. He was largely or completely incapacitated and at first an inner circle knew about it and eventually everyone knew about it. Edith Wilson functioned as the president’s unelected secret brain for 16 months until March 4, 1921 when he was replaced by Warren Harding. She and Jill Biden are the two “wives of vegetables who grasped the wheel” that I know of. (Also, Jill Biden is the only human on earth with a doctoral degree in education who thinks you should call her “Dr.”) I’m not sure about Ronald Reagan. He was definitely in decline during his last term and I could see it for myself on TV but he was still pretty sharp and did things Biden doesn’t, like make public appearances without looking like a Roomba.
Anyway, there’s the way things would play out in a sane world of rational adults and the way it played out in our demented shadow of reality. Stay tuned for more rambling.
” I’m from a generation that doesn’t need to be spoon fed every fucking word. I much prefer 30 minutes reading a transcript to two hours watching dudes sitting in chairs. (Who thinks as slow as people talk?)”
Thank you! The entire reason I have a love/hate relationship with podcasts – the delivery is sooooooooooo slow.
Great Post!
Thanks!
Even though this is EXACTLY what the 25th amendment is for, I can actually live with knowing that the real decisions are being made by somebody other than a mentally missing president. But I do want to know who the puppet master is.
I remember as a kid, USSR was in death throes (nobody knew it back then) and part of that was they all looked like fossils. The Kremlin was packed with doddering yo-yos who had nothing in common with actual Russian people and it was clear that nobody knew who was in charge. Each of these many geezers was always described as fit and healthy until he was dead two weeks ago. It was surreal. Now we have that in America. Aside from a small (5%?) slice of the population, I’m pretty sure nobody thinks Biden is running day to day affairs. As a practical matter the official chain of command no longer matters and nobody seems to know who’s in control (if anyone is).
Of course, I’m legally required to state that Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history and he did it almost without campaigning. Anyone who questions this might be jailed. So what do I know?
One other thought, until recently I always knew exactly where the president was and what he was (supposedly) doing. This was true of all major candidates too. I miss that! If Carter did something the press always made sure it was at least mentioned. If Reagan took a dump on a Tuesday in Tennessee there was a small note in the press. “While traveling to the event in Atlanta, President Reagan stopped off in Nashville for lunch.” Same with Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton and even Bush Jr. (with a few exceptions when Bush Jr. travelled to war areas to meet the troops and even then his presence was announced as soon as he’d safely gotten there).
Back in “the old days” there was never ever a time when a main candidate or sitting president was just “not around”. That changed as recently as 2008. Obama, as a candidate, was always around here or there but his main competitor Hillary Clinton sometimes vanished. It was a lot like this: “Today candidate Barak Obama was at a press event in Philadelphia, John McCain was in a budget sub-committee meeting, Sarah Palin was at a ribbon cutting where journalists were throwing rocks at her, and Hillary Clinton was at… none of your business peasant!” The press keeps tabs on Trump pretty well (which I appreciate) but Obama (once he was president) occasionally drifted off. Biden is the ultimate extreme. He can take a month off and nobody will even know he was gone.
>That’s sarcasm y’all and it applies to both Trump and Biden
One of the many bad things about socialism is that it kills the individual. ‘You’ aren’t you, you’re a part of a group. All whites are this, blacks are like that, women have special viewpoints, you know the drill.
In real life, people are complex individuals. Equating T and B is a manifestation of the ‘MSNBC mentality’. People are groups. These do that. Those do the other things.
Intelligence demands that you treat individuals as individuals. When you start talking generalities like Dems walk like dis and Rep dey be walking like dat, you’ve lost intellectual thought and have adopted Democrat-style emotional logic (which has determined that you are racist and have no say in the public square. You are white. Trump is politician. You have no uniqueness, no valid viewpoints, outside of your group.)
I agree that lumping groups of people is sub-par thinking. However, in my example it’s based on a legitimate observation. I was trying to make a joke (if half-heartedly) that both our current president and his predecessor very much share the trait of thinking they’re the smartest guy in the room. At the very least both spend a lot of time talking about how they are very extremely smart. This is in addition to their many other excellent traits which they also expound upon at length.
Some of this is the nature of politics. Virtually all politicians can and do spend a lot of time talking about how great they are (and how smart). It’s part of their path to power. But even among politicians, the last few presidents (I probably could include Obama in the list) have gone to great lengths to explain how gosh darned smart they are.
It is my observation that one mark of true intelligence is not using that fact to bludgeon others. A smart person knows they’re smart, but if they have the slightest hint of wisdom they exhibit humility. It would be unwise (even stupid) to say “I’m smarter than everyone in this press conference / Congressional committee / gathering of world leaders and therefore everyone should do as I say. In particular a high politician like the President is probably surrounded night and day by smart people contacted for consultation, or as competitors, etc… Some of them, almost certainly most of them, are smarter than the President himself.
When a person (any person) starts blathering on about how they’re the smartest guy ever… it’s a sign they’re very much the opposite. Both Trump and Biden exhibit this characteristic.
>blathering on about how they’re the smartest guy ever
But Trump actually has the success he says he does. All the business classes and books I’ve been exposed to tell you to trumpet your successes, because who else will? Like your victory over the cold, or mine over my Gremlin.
Victory over a Gremin is supreme!
On a more serious note, yes Trump has accomplished things and yes Biden has not… and politicians love to talk about how awesome they are. But I do wish for a little humility in ALL politicians.