Proof # 4378 that the world is unfair: Charles Krauthammer is dead at 68, and vile, brain-fried old hippie Peter Fonda is still alive at 114.
Krauthammer has been a hero of mine for a long time. He had the kind of intellectual gravitas that is obvious to even pedestrian-minded folks like me, and yet he could also banter with the best of them on Special Report. I always loved when he’d launch a well-deserved broadside at some execrable offender, and after landing one verbal killing stroke after another, Brit or Brett would be temporarily silenced. And Charles, with a twinkle in his eye, would use that old tagline, “Strong letter to follow.”
Famously, he dove into a pool while a young med student at Harvard, and hit his head at just the right angle to sever his cervical spine, paralyzing him for the rest of his life. In a terribly ironic twist, he had been reading two books beside the pool before he took his ill-fated dive: a medical text called “The Anatomy of the Spine,” and a 1930 existential novel by Andre Malraux called “Man’s Fate.” If you were writing a novel and tried to sneak in that detail, any decent editor would red pencil it: too obvious and ham-handed.
Even more astounding facts about Krauthammer? He was a Democrat well into his adulthood, and he wrote speeches for Walter Mondale. I almost can’t believe either one of those. We’ve all heard the cliche about “if you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative by 30, you have no brain.” But as insightful and gifted as Charles was, I can’t believe he wasn’t through his immature lefty phase by 2nd grade at the latest. And to picture him in the act of placing the words of one of the century’s most gifted minds into the mouth of one of the millenium’s most boring men is nothing short of astonishing!
It’s a testament to the weapons-grade blandness of Walter Mondale that he could have spoken words written by Charles Krauthammer – Charles Freaking Krauthammer! – and still come across with all of the intellectual vigor and effervescence of a barely animated block of wood.
Seriously, it’s almost like a variation on the old philosophical riddle, “Can God make a weight too heavy for Him to lift?” Except that it solves itself. Yes, God can make a man so existentially mundane that he can so deaden the words written by a wordsmith as talented as Charles Krauthammer that he could lose 49 of 50 states. And that man is Walter F. Mondale.
Anyway, Charles is gone, and the world is a little emptier without him. Sadly, there will be no more “strong letters to follow” from him.
Peter Fonda, on the other hand? Ugh. If you are like me, you probably assumed that this lefty fossil died decades ago. Most likely either aspirating his own vomit, or with a mostly-empty needle sticking into his upper arm, just below the rubber tourniquet that he had tied himself, shakily.
But it turns out that he is alive, and that the frontrunner in the “predicting the eventual cause of Peter Fonda’s death” office pool now has to be “suffocation, caused by 3rd-degree cranial-rectal inversion.”
I assume you saw his lovely tweets in the last several days. Apparently he’s been trading in misogynistic hate toward conservatives for some time, but he earned some special attention this week, when he tweeted, “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles and see if mother will stand up against the giant a–hole she is married to.”
For those of you who don’t speak “Compassionate Leftist,” allow me to translate from that to English: “I disagree with the way President Trump is following our immigration laws.”
And it’s not enough that Petey is so hateful and inarticulate – he happens to be a colossal hypocrite, too. Because Obama followed these same policies for 8 years, and Fonda’s friends in the MSM and the Democrat party could not be bothered. In fact, you may remember the wave of outrage that hit about two weeks ago, when video emerged of immigrant kids being held in quasi-cages, and the networks all went wall-to-wall cage-gate Cage-Gate CAGE-GATE!!!
For about 6 hours. Because in hour six, someone discovered that that video came from 2014. When Barack “The Emperor’s New Dashiki” Obama was prez.
So… Throat clearing. Shuffling of papers on the desk. Soft cough. “Okay, nothing to see here, folks. We’ll be right back after the break, to unpack the rumors that Donald Trump asked Stormy Daniels to wear only a babushka scarf and coat herself with Russian dressing during their one-night stand a million years ago.”
Anyway, Melania reported evil geezer Fonda to the Secret Service for his threat, which makes me love her even more. If I were the kind of creep he is, I’d wish for Fonda to be thrown into a cage full of MS 13 gang members after someone had dosed their meth with viagra. But I’m too dignified for such a thought.
Though I will say that for those of you keeping score at home, Peter and Jane Fonda have now moved past Uday and Qusay Hussein, Lyle and Erik Menendez, and Rahm and Ari Emanuel and onto the gold medal stand in the “My Least Favorite Siblings Ever” competition.
And, as fate would have it (or, as I would put it, “as a vengeful yet just God would have it”) Peter Fonda has a movie coming out tomorrow. The movie is called, “boundaries,” and its tag line – which I swear I am not making up – is “every road trip comes with baggage.”
Yes. Yes it does. Baggage like having one of the actors wish pedophilic rape on the child of a president the week before his first movie in 72 years comes out.
How about it, COers? Can we all get together and NOT go to that movie?!
Rather than ending on that somewhat down note, I thought I’d revisit one of my favorite “sign of the times” lefties of the last decade or so: delusional white woman who pretends to be a black woman, Rachel Dolezal. (I know what you were thinking. You were thinking I was going to say, “Delusional white woman who pretends to be an Indian, Elizabeth Warren. But that would be too predictable, don’t you think?) (Still, #wemustneverstopmockingher.)
So Rachel somehow conned a bunch of dull-witted leftist identity politics/racial grievance mongers in the NAACP to elect her the head of a local NAACP chapter, despite her being not the least bit black. (And no, the “C” in “NAACP” does not stand for “Caucasian.” And never mind what it does stand for, because if you said it out loud, you’d be an evil racist, you evil racist.)
When it turned out that Rachel was as white as Liz Warren, hijinks ensued, and Rachel was fired by the NAACP, and had to take a job as head of the NAAWP.
Unfortunately for her, there is no such group for White People, so she became unemployed. But she still somehow managed to acquire — and put into a bank — around $85,000 US dollars.
Did having 85 large keep her from fraudulently applying for public assistance, you ask?
Did you read the part above, where I mentioned that she is a committed leftist?
So, long story short, Dolezal has plead not guilty to welfare fraud, and is going to trial. You’re probably wondering what my favorite two parts of this story are. So I’ll tell you.
First, virtually every MSM story written about Rachel’s recent woes uses phrases like “the woman who pretended to be black,” or “Ex-NAACP Chief who posed as a black woman.” “Pretended to be?” “Posed as?” I’m outraged by you judgmental journalists having the gall to question this blue-eyed white woman’s blackness! The next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that the two male high school athletes who recently won several state competitions in women’s track are actually male athletes “pretending to be females.” Or that Bruce Jenner is “posing as” a woman. Shame on you!
Second, the news stories mentioned that Rachel Dolezal has now changed her slave name. (Or is that her “free name?” I’m so confused!) She is now legally known as “Nkechi Diallo.”
Don’t get me wrong: Nkechi is a pretty bad-ass name. If I knew an actual black woman with that name, I would admire her name 100%.
But Rachel Dolezal is definitely a “Rachel.” Or maybe a “Jenny.” The judges would also accept “Julie.”
But c’mon. She’s no “Nkechi,” any more than she’s a “Zu Zhi Chang,” or “Imhotep Dolezal.”
Which brings me to my closing thought. A while back both the esteemed CO and the equally esteemed COSE pointed out that lists are fun.
So I present a list contest for CO nation: Worst name changes in history (not counting Rachel to Nkechi).
I will suggest three nominees:
- “Cassius Clay” to “Muhammad Ali.” Rationale: “Cassius” is not just cool, it’s Roman Emperor cool. (If I had had a son – and if I hadn’t gone with “Walter Payton Simpson” or “Antonin Scalia Simpson,” he was going to be either “Marcus Aurelius Simpson” or “Hadrian Simpson.) And “Muhammad,” no offense, has been a little devalued these last 14 centuries or so.
- “Cat Stevens” to “Yusuf Islam.” Rationale: Cat Stevens was one soulful singer, who wrote songs such as “Tea for the Tillerman” and “Peace Train.” “Cat” is a name that will get you laid in every hemisphere, if you’re into that kind of thing. “Yusuf” is not a great start, and “Islam” is… how should I put this? … not a great finish. And Yusuf Islam wrote such upbeat ditties as “DEATH TO SALMAN RUSHDIE!” and “Jihadi Train.”
- “Prince” to “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.” Rationale: Sure, “Prince” is not that horrible. It’s not good, but it’s not horrible. But “TAFKAP”? It’s a cliché because it’s true: don’t pick a name that has to be written as an acronym. (And no, WEB Dubois is no exception, even though WEB is much better than TAFKAP.)
Okay, CO nation. I’ve thrown down the gauntlet. Choose one of the above, or nominate your own in the “Worst Name Change In History” contest!
Martin Simpson 