Thursday, March 09, 2017

Remember When The Acting President Would Banter About Norman Borlaug?


Or dive headlong into abstruse conversations about syntax and space exploration?


Or crush charter members of the ignorant tight-ass club with his bare hands?


Of course, President Bartlet was fictional, but it is no accident last two Democratic presidents (and the Democratic nominee in the last election) are all formidably intelligent public servants, who are widely and deeply read and believe passionately in the importance of good government.

Our last Republican president was an incurious fuck-up who had to be installed in office by five Republican activist judges because he lost the popular vote, and was held in high esteem by his supporters because his supporters were dolts who valued "fake cowboy I'd like to have a beer with" over show-offy book learnin' and were comforted by the fact that he pronounced "new-cue-ler" the way Jebus intended and not like some fancy-pants "scientist".

And this Republican president?  Who also lost the popular vote so very, very bigly and had to be cheated into office by his Russians sponsors?  Who lies constantly?  About everything?

This Republican president makes the last Republican president look like Norman Fucking Borlaug.

President* Trump Has a Shadow Cabinet of the Dangerously Unhinged
Today's news out of Camp Runamuck is not reassuring.

I hereby renounce any snark I have aimed at the current administration regarding its inability to staff the executive branch of government because, if the good people at ProPublica are as right as they usually are, the country is better off if we don't allow these dolts to hire anyone at all. Apparently, since the inauguration, we're all writing checks to the unbalanced.
A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed "ethnic cleansing" in a plot to "liquidate" the white working class. A former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool. A pair of healthcare industry lobbyists. A lobbyist for defense contractors. An "evangelist" and lobbyist for Palantir, the Silicon Valley company with close ties to intelligence agencies. And a New Hampshire Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school.
I remember when the biggest personnel scandal in Washington was when the Justice Department under C-Plus Augustus got turned into a hiring hall for the graduates of wingnut universities and law schools...
Republicans. Boy. I don't know.

6 comments:

Davis said...

I've noticed a pattern. A smart president is followed by a dope. Jimmy Carter, nuclear engineer; Ronald Reagan, dope. Bill Clinton, Rhodes scholar; George W. Bush, bigger dope. Barack Obama, well, maybe the smartest of them all, followed by...

bowtiejack said...

That smart-dope-smart-dope - pattern?
Something else about that . . .
Democrat-GOP-Democrat-GOP . . . ?
Naw, that couldn't be it cause both sides . . .

trgahan said...

Well, just look at the reports coming back from all the media/political operative expeditions to the Rust Belt to sit around the fire for discussions with the humble, economically anxious, working class abandoned by Democrats (TM).

So far, no expeditions have returned with reports from the missing 68 million tribe, the media/political operatives can't seem to find any members since November of 2016.

Returned reports indicate that "He's Politically Incorrect" is the new "Have A Beer With." This virtue is trumping (no pun intended) any single policy stance or campaign promise with the next most mentioned issues being promises to punch the "illegals" and bring the jobs back (no further details provided).

Before deeper analysis can occur, the conservation quickly switches to how mean liberals are for calling them stupid or bigoted. Tacit (sometimes overt) report conclusions are that the current problem is Democrats are in danger of losing Trump voters if they don't stop it with all the PC "identity" politics (aka. working with and doing things for brown people too). But the election certainly had nothing to do with race and it was "the economy stupid" (which turned from seven years of Horrible to Awesome on Nov. 9th)

Of course, this "research" can't be considered scientific because the reports:

A) never an analysis of media consumption habits of the interviewees;

B) acknowledge that when people realize they made a mistake and are called out for it, they make up reasons that don't make them sound evil/mean/vindictive/stupid;

B) never asked why the hell, if they feel so abandoned by DC/Institutions/etc. did they re-elect their Tea Bagger Rep/Sen/Gov. The root/cause of their anxiety is awfully focused, yet the line of questioning is never pursued.

Robt said...

On the very first post here of Dave Statton,

Brilliant Aristocratic inheritance spoiled brat, Grover Norquist has had GOP worshiping his holy words of,
All we need in the White House when GOP hold control of Congress is a president with a hand and five working digits that can hold a pen and sign his name to our legislation". unquote.

---Did the GOP ever think their wish would come true?

And in the form of a 5 Short fingered Vulgarian?

bluicebank said...

This situation reminds me of a faux pas some of liberals made during the early months of the GW Bush admin, urging him to get more involved in foreign affairs. Recall that the WH at the time shelved Clinton's peace deal in the Mideast, and we thought that was kinda stupid.

But THEN the Shubbery awoke from reading a children's book whilst the Twin Towers fell, and performed foreign policy. As in melting the brass ring he held, and taking a dump into the tuba.

The Hippocratic Oath says, "First, do no harm." What most people don't deduce is its ancillary: "If you're a butcher, stay out of the operating room."

So I'm with you. Better to have a half-room of incompetents, than a fully functional Death Star.

DivaNewYork said...

Drifty: I nominare you and Aaron Sorkin for Best Dialogue EVER.