About Last Week...

The Stage is Set

When in high office, politicians want to take their place on the world stage.  They want to be seen to appear as if they are in charge, that they are taking the reins of a crisis.

Of course, per the consistently insightful “Yes, Prime Minister” sitcom, “(P)eople on stages are called actors. All they are required to do is look plausible, stay sober, and say the lines they're given in the right order.”

All three to be challengers beyond Kamala Harris’s comprehension, let alone capabilities.

There was a reason she burrowed in the first month or so of the campaign – her campaign knew that every interaction was – and is – like playing Russian Roulette.  You can only get lucky so many times before you blow your head off (the whole clip below is funny, but for the reference go to 4 minutes 21 seconds):

Harris – to any clear eyed observer – does not look plausible.  One does not look at her and say “hey, I feel good about her leadership in a crisis.”

In fact, one would most likely not look at her and say “hey, I bet the directions she gave me to CVS are right.”

She oozes implausibility because she is just that – implausible.  She had one moderately difficult election in her past and even then the wheels were greased more than a pig.  Otherwise, she has been bred/cloned/manufactured in California’s hot house flower, one party state:  

An affair with Willie Brown jumpstarted her career, and then the way was cleared for her to advance because of what she was and who she knew – not what she could do.  Evidence of her abusive and chaotic management style, the wildly inappropriate cackle, her incomprehensible speaking style, her flexibility with the facts, and her relatively low-wattage intellectual capabilities were all brushed aside and she was – with her toe barely dipped into the Senate pool – touted as a real up-and-comer by an identity-obsessed punditry that only – at best – looked through the distorting greenhouse glass and thought they saw something beautiful.

She sprinted out of the gate during her 2020 presidential run – good poll numbers, buckets of money, fawning press, the whole magilla.  And then something happened – Kamala happened.  It went so far south so quickly she didn’t even make it to Iowa.

But maybe it was merely a combination of bad luck, America’s tendency towards racism and misogyny, and a general desire for blandness after Trump that put paid her campaign.  Yes, that must be it, the media and Biden campaign decided, so she was tapped for veep.

And then Kamala happened again; she has proven so bad at the job that even a dweeby, white male former mid-sized city mayor and current transportation secretary is beating her in the “what if?” polls.

And then Joe Biden became even more implausible and – schtunk – she get the nod from the Democratic coup plotters who – while not pleased – thought they might have a better chance with her.

Considering her current polling numbers and that certain feel in the air:  Oops

As to saying the lines they are given in the right order, well, the less said the better (hey – that was her campaign motto for a few weeks!)  Especially when one remembers that some of her sillier salads have actually come during teleprompter-assisted events; her ability to either remember lines, deliver lines, and let alone speak without having lines to remember is almost pitiable.

Sober?  Well, the folks at Saturday Night Live think that may be an issue and even beyond that are the credible reports that she is, at least, a “wine mom.”  That being said, I’m not sure the speaking and cackling issues stem from that, but the staffing problems – waves hand with glass, sniping ‘get rid of that bitch’ is almost certainly an oft-repeated semi-slur - may very well be.

Side note – I waited on then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once.  We gave him a private room to chat with staff for 70 minutes and I brought him seven 7&7s and he didn’t miss a beat.

All of this seems to be catching up to Kamala at exactly the worst possible time and at this point she should be looking for some divine intervention (Joe dies, people feel sympathetic) or some more corporeal, deep statey-thing.

Though that may not happen – at this point the cheating would have to be too obvious and the powers that be can just torture and flay and frustrate Trump for the next four years like they did last time.

And then it’s on to the open election of 2028 – I understand the Uniparty in DC is already trying to create a hybrid clone of FDR, Oprah, JFK, Barack Obama, a splash of Ronald Reagan, and a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.

Speaking of 512-pound eastern lowland gorillas, I present this:  the perfect satirical news story from the days back when The Onion was good…very good.

The Babylon Bee is good and its headlines are typically funny and appropriately acerbic, but it just cannot match the perfect writing and tone of “real news” that made The Onion so spot on,  case in point:  

ROANOKE, VA—Local claims adjuster David Seaborne, a devoted husband and father of three, died Tuesday at the age of 37 following a long and painful personal battle with a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.

According to his wife, Christine—one of the few people who was aware of his courageous struggle—Seaborne chose to fight the muscular, quarter-ton primate in private night after night in hopes of maintaining as normal a life as was possible for his family.

“In some ways, I’m relieved that it’s finally over and David can be at peace,” said a tearful Mrs. Seaborne, clutching at a recent photograph of her husband, most of his hair missing after being ripped from his scalp by the rampaging jungle beast. “To watch him seclude himself in that basement every night and know that he was about to be in an unimaginable amount of pain—it just became too much to bear.”

“He fought that terrible gorilla with every last ounce of strength he had, but in the end, David’s body just couldn’t handle it anymore,” Mrs. Seaborne added. “Every morning, he’d look at me with tired eyes and deep scratches across his face, and he’d say, ‘Honey, I’m going to beat this thing.’ God, he was brave.”

Mrs. Seaborne said she’s used most of her husband’s life insurance payout to start the David Seaborne Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of those battling gorillas or other great apes. According to the foundation’s website, the growing problem affects one in every 29 million Americans, and one in every 80 Congolese.

Although Seaborne never let on to friends or coworkers that he was desperately fighting for his life with a violent primate, many suspected that something was wrong.

“I noticed that David had lost a lot of weight over the past couple of months, especially when he came in with his arm torn off,” fellow claims adjuster Kevin Delano said. “He also left work early a lot for doctor’s appointments, or when he was just too weak to make it through the day. Still, with all he was going through, David never complained.”

The few people who knew of his hardship said that, even toward the end of his ordeal, when Seaborne was often completely covered in feces, the gorilla never managed to rob him of his dignity.

Dr. Earl Patterson, the physician who treated Seaborne throughout his life-or-death battle, initially gave Seaborne just six months to live. Though the prognosis was grim, Patterson said that, with the help of powerful tranquilizers, Seaborne was able to beat back the gorilla several times, and his situation started to look more promising.

The gorilla, however, eventually stopped responding to the drugs and returned with a vengeance.

“If we had caught this thing earlier, before its growth got completely out of control, David would have had a much better chance of survival,” Patterson said. “But after it reached the silverback stage, it was only a matter of time.”

“I tried to make David as comfortable as possible, and even gave him a helmet, but at that point the most we could do was pray,” Patterson added.

Patterson said that he has strongly urged Seaborne’s wife to take preventative measures to protect the couple’s three sons, aged 9, 12, and 15, from suffering the same fate as their father.

“Because these things tend to run in the family, Jonathan, Patrick, and David Jr. are in a very high risk group,” Patterson said. “Realistically, though, there just isn’t a whole lot that can be done. After all, that gorilla is still in their basement.”

First, I know you laughed out loud reading that.  Second, I personally have written that almost identical story – the cadence, who to get quotes from, the sad tone, the ‘what a great guy the victim was’ aspect. 

Almost every reporter who ever worked locally has written that story – all The Onion did was replace “pancreatic cancer” with “eastern lowland gorilla.”

Truly brilliant and we need more of that now: Remember – the gorilla is still in the basement and in more ways than one.

This week’s epigram is a quote from Whit Stillman’s amazingly good movie “Barcelona,”   in which two friends, one of whom joined the Navy, are chatting about their career choices:

“The Naval officer is one of the only white-collar jobs where you really must deal intensively with the physical world all day long, and it counts. It is not theoretical. You dominate the elements in all four dimensions without a slip-up, or it gets very wet.”

And Kamala right now is very wet indeed.

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