Okay, I won’t lie: the trend in our national politics is veering toward the depressing. It’s looking more and more likely that a blue wave is going to hit in November, returning the majority leader’s gavel into the shaky, dessicated hands of evil Alzheimic mummy Nancy Pelosi. Paul Ryan is leaving (a less-than-catastrophic loss, but a loss nonetheless), Trey Gowdy is retiring (a disastrous loss), while Dick “no one ever calls him Richard” Durbin and Mad Maxine Waters and Frederica “Cowboy Pimp Hat” Wilson and hundreds of other horrible leftist pols aren’t going anywhere. Plus re-roofing a cool 1930s house is too damned expensive. (Maybe that last one just applies to me.)
On the other hand, Cautious Optimism followers have rocketed past 10K, 11k, 12k and then 13K, I’ve still got a world-class family, my dog is still a paragon of canine virtue, and creepy leftists who need mocking are everywhere, so I’ve got Work That Matters to do.
First up this time: it seems that the latest hereditary evil Middle East dictator was featured in a story in the NY Post, entitled, “Assad and the First Lady of Hell Live Life of Luxury as War Rages.”
The gist of the story is that Mr. and Mrs. Assad have been doing what dictators do: living it up while their people suffer. It mentions that their mansion – built by alleged Japanese architect Kenzo Tange – is rumored to have cost $1 billion dollars. (Meanwhile, my renovation of the house we are moving into is threatening to cost only slightly less than that.) (Also, if you’re at a restaurant where you trust the chef, I recommend the puffer fish, with a side of Kenzo Tange.)
I only have a few things to say about this story. First, nice job, Middle East, on another vile dictatorship that still somehow doesn’t offend leftist sensibilities as much as scrappy, democratic little Israel. Second, if I weren’t too mature to stoop to mocking someone’s appearance, I would point out that Assad’s head is the shape of a perfect upside-down triangle, and he apparently donated his chin for a transplant operation for Mitch McConnell. (The transplant obviously didn’t take.)
Third, the article claims that Assad’s British-born wife has been dubbed “The First Lady of Hell.” Hillary Clinton’s lawyers were on the phone immediately, threatening a trademark violation suit, until they heard back from Assad’s lawyers. “Ohhhh, it’s “OF Hell,” not “FROM Hell? Nevermind.”
Speaking of unpleasant former first ladies, on April 5th Michelle O was at it again, when she spoke to a women’s leadership conference in Boston. (By the way, no women’s leadership conference that has Michelle O and not Nikki Haley is worth attending). Among her brilliant comments: she compared the Obama administration to the experience of “having the ‘good parents’ at home…. The responsible parent, the one who told you to eat your carrots and go to bed on time.” Unsurprisingly, she compared the Obama greatness to the Trump Mordor-ishness: “And now we have the other parent. We thought it’d feel fun – maybe it feels fun for now, because we can eat candy all day and stay up late and not follow the rules.”
What can one say about that? When you think of the Obama administration, does anyone think of a slavish obsession with “following the rules?” (Rules like, “Don’t use the IRS against political opponents,” or, “Don’t be a racial arsonist,” or “Don’t lie about everything all the time,” or, “Don’t appoint horrible leftist mediocrities as attorneys general and secretaries of state?”) I think it’s indicative of arrogant leftist condescension that she thinks of the American people as children who need the wise guidance of know-it-all political parents in the first place.
But even taking her pols-as-parents analogy, it doesn’t pass the smell test. I wouldn’t argue that Trump has exactly been “Father Know’s Best” era Ward Cleaver. But at least he hasn’t been an Obama-era America-hating Ward Churchill. (That’s right, a trenchant dual Ward reference. You won’t get that at the Huffington Post!)
And if the Obama administration had been parents, they’d be the kind of parents who taught their kids that Dr. Suess is racist, and America is terrible, and tofu is delicious. They’d forbid their son from playing with any toys that he’d like, and make him wear a dress, because gender doesn’t exist, and if their daughter had a doll, they’d take it away, because motherhood is slavery. And if either of their kids built a sandcastle they’d kick it over and lecture them about unfairness because, “you didn’t build that.” And all of the books in the house would be written by either Noam Chomsky or Saul Alinsky, and all of the videos would be Michael Moore “documentaries,” and they’d only take their kids to church if a racist creep like Jeremiah Wright was preaching.
Then, after a tasteless vegan supper and a crackpot lecture about the NRA and racism, they’d give their kids each a pair of scissors and tell them to go out into the street during an eclipse, and then run with the scissors while looking directly into the sun instead of looking both ways before they cross the street. (And, scene.)
Next, on the topic of famous leftists behaving badly and never paying a price for it, I give you… all of them!
I kid. Actually, let’s talk about Ted Kennedy. After decades of drunken, lecherous behavior, conspiring with Russian commies to try to undermine Reagan, plus killing a young woman, when he gets to the end of his life, the MSM celebrates him as the “Lion of the Senate.” First, because “The Perpetually Inebriated Dirigible of the Senate” just doesn’t have that ring to it.
Also, lion? Really? The King of the Jungle? I could buy, “The Skink of the Senate,” or maybe the “Remora of the Senate.” But Lion? That’s way too cool of an animal to besmirch with a Kennedy comparison. “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” is a favorite book. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is not a bad novelty song. The “Lion of Judah” is a bad ass Hebrew tribal reference and metaphorical title for Christ. “The Lion in Winter” is a solid play and movie. (And by the way, hat tip to Lloyd Billingsley, who wrote an article about Kennedy on the American Greatness website called, “The Lion in Water.” HA!)
But Ted Kennedy doesn’t deserve association with any lion, except maybe The Cowardly Lion. I could see ol’ Teddy – four beers into a seven beer dinner – reciting the lines from the Wizard of Oz: “Who put the ape in the apricot? What makes the Hottentots so hot? Whadda they got that I ain’t got? Courage.” (Close your eyes and imagine those lines delivered in his New England braying, while he’s soaking wet and swaying back and forth.) (Also, if those lines aren’t better than any rap lyrics written in the last decade, I’ll eat my metaphorical hat.)
Which is all to say… I saw Chappaquiddick over the weekend. Well-acted, well written, infuriating to watch. It brings back decades of sycophantic press coverage. I was reminded especially of the creepy article by Boston Globe’s Charles Pierce in a 2003 profile on Ted. Pierce tiptoes around Kennedy’s bad behavior with sentences like, “It might not have mattered to anyone, the fistfight outside the Manhattan saloon, the foozling with waitresses in Washington restaurants…”
What the hell is “foozling,” other than a goofy-sounding word you make up to take the sting out of more accurate words, like “harassment” or “sexual assault?” It’s a word Cosby would use when he was scatting over the open to a sitcom, or maybe when he is faking diminished capacity during a civil trial. (“Your honor, who among us hasn’t foozled around a little from time to time? But I swear I never foozled with her drink.”)
Later, Pierce bemoans how the Mary Jo story is “always there” to haunt poor Ted. “She denies to him forever the moral credibility that lay behind not merely all those rhetorical thunderclaps that came so easily in the New Frontier but also Robert Kennedy’s anguished appeals to the country’s better angels.” Look at that syntax: SHE denies HIM moral credibility! How dare she!
The article ends with one of the most egregious leftist quotes ever: “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age….” Yeah. If only he hadn’t KILLED HER, she’d probably still be voting for him.
In fact, knowing what I know about voting practices in Democrat areas, I think someone should check to be sure that she didn’t continue to vote for him, long after she was buried.
Finally, in the wake of my aunt’s passing last month, her son has been going through the house, and finding old Simpson photos. I’ve just posted one of them on Martinsimpsonwriting.com.
If you’ve ever wanted to see a future snarkster as a kid, check out that pic: Dad’s got the Ron Swanson-approved flattop, mom’s rocking the cat’s eye glasses that were all the rage among 28-year-old women who wanted to look like 62-year-old schoolmarms, my spoiled sister has a smile as big as her head. And then there’s me, in a tasteful v-neck sweater that foreshadowed the dapper lady killer I would one day become.
Why am I smiling so hugely? Because I was growing up in the best country ever, and God was in His heaven, and somehow I knew that that very day, in Oklahoma, a young Elizabeth Warren was picking out a squaw outfit for her class’s Thanksgiving play, foreshadowing the lifetime of richly-deserved mockery that I would one day be blessed to heap upon her (#wemustneverstopmockingher).
Martin Simpson 