What a terrible week this has been, even before the bombing in Kabul. I started a column early on Thursday, mocking some of the criminal incompetence of the bumbling Biden administration. But when the bombing happened, I dropped it; in the face of so much tragedy, it felt small-minded to write anything at all about these fools.
But after the last four days, I can’t stop myself. If I don’t spit a little bile their way, I’m going to either choke on it, or have a stroke. These people need some lambasting and mockery, and I can’t refrain from adding my small-minded rant to the chorus that is — rightly — raining down on them.
But if you are not in the mood for this right now, I don’t blame you. Please feel free to skip this column, and we’ll catch up on the next one.
Before I lay into anyone else, I need to blame myself, too. In my last column, I mocked Clarissa Ward, a journalist reporting from Kabul. In my defense, she said the words, “They’re chanting Death to America, but they seem friendly.” I don’t care who you are: that was a very stupid thing to say.
But since then I’ve heard excerpts on Ben Shapiro’s show of other reports she’s been filing, and it sounds like she’s actually providing an honest bounce on the nightmare that has been developing in Afghanistan. Plus she’s a woman reporting on a bunch of misogynistic, violent creeps in a hell hole country, and that requires far more courage than it takes for me to snark about it from the safety of Stately Simpson manor.
So I take it back, Clarissa Ward. Mea culpa.
For those of you scoring from home, this means that the title of Stupidest Liar in the Media is up for grabs again. The large clot of morons reporting during spasms of violence, arson and looting all last year that the protests were “mostly peaceful,” are still strong contenders.
But boy is this year giving us a crowded field!
It’s hard to rule out Hacky Psaki. Recently, she decided to pick a semantic fight when Peter Doocy asked a question that included a reference to Americans who were “stranded” in Afghanistan.
Not since the Arkansas Horndog quibbled over what the meaning of ‘is’ is has someone made him/herself look as simultaneously childish and dishonest.
When Hacky objected to the term “stranded” and Doocy pushed back by noting that, you know, Americans ARE stranded there, Jen sounded like a snooty high school girl: “I’m just calling you out for saying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home, we are going to bring them home and I think that’s important for the American public to hear and understand.”
It’s never a good thing to get extra indignant when you’re in the act of telling an outrageously obvious lie. But “calling you out?” What adult says that?
I half-expected some of the MSM lapdogs in the room to taunt Doocy with, “Oooh, you’ve been called out by the Ginger Goon! Burn!”
In a perfect world, Doocy would have had the chance to pummel her with a follow-up. “If stranded doesn’t work for you, what verb would you prefer? ‘Trapped?’ ‘Stuck?’ ‘Abandoned?’ ‘Boned?’ ‘Up Schumer creek without a paddle?” Or, “It’s a real ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ moment for Americans in Kabul right now?”
But just when you thought no one could out-stupid the Hackster, Anthony Blinken stepped up to the plate.
Chris Wallace asked him, “Does the president not know what’s going on?” Now that should be the easiest lay-up ever. Any Sec State asked that question should thunder, “Of course he does! I’m outraged by such an insulting question. The president in continually consulting with experts and advisers, and he is in absolute command of the situation!”
But Blinken can’t say that, because even in a room full of leftist lickspittles, he’d be laughed out of there.
Instead, if you pause the video right after that question, you can almost get a glimpse behind Blinken’s eyes, where his shriveled conscience is dying to scream out, “NO! Obviously not! Have you seen him lately, or watched anything he’s done?! He’s not there! What are we gonna do now? Game over, man! Game over!” (Hat tip to a hysterical Bill Paxton in Aliens.)
Instead, in that dark night of his soul, Blinken betrayed his last shred of humanity, and gave the most sequitur-less non-sequitur in the history of non-sequiturs: “Chris, all I can tell you is what I’ve heard. And, again, this is a powerful, emotional time for a lot of allies and partners, as it is for me, as it is for us.”
Good lord. You almost have to feel sorry for the miserable dope. Almost.
Try to imagine a world in which such a lame response would work. Every bad actor, when caught dead to rights, would use that line.
When FDIC examiners confront a bank president: “How do you explain the millions of embezzled cash in your offshore account?”
When an objective journalist (HA!) asks Obama, “Where are all those shovel-ready jobs you promised? And why have I not been able to keep my doctor, or my health plan?”
When Hillary charges into Bill’s home office, causing a startled intern to bang her head against the bottom of his desk drawer and swallow her retainer when she hears, “CAW CAW CAW???”
Would any of those guilty jerks be able to get away with saying, “This is a powerful, emotional time for all of us?!”Of course not. But that’s what our Secretary of State is reduced to, in the service of what’s left of Joe Biden.
As bad as he’s been already, it’s so depressing to watch Biden’s mind-bogglingly horrible actions in Afghanistan, and how much damage he’s done to our reputation, and our ability to be trusted by any allies or feared by any foes in the future.
I know that our hearts all go out to Kathy McCollum, the mother of Rylee, a Marine who was killed in the airport bombing. In a tear-filled cry of anguish, she mourned her son, and called Joe Biden a “feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap.”
I usually hate it when people gratuitously insult our leaders, because that so often bespeaks hysterical over-reaction arising from legitimate political disagreements, or the unhinged passions of the speaker.
But the truth is an absolute defense against charges of slander, and in this case, I defy anyone to say that Kathy McCollum is wrong, or that her emotions are un-earned, or disproportionate.
This site is called Cautious Optimism, but it takes a real, hard-core optimist to find some silver linings in this sky full of dark clouds. But let me try.
1. Some of you probably have pretty tough jobs. You might be cops, who have to deal with depraved criminals preying on innocent people. You might be in the secret service, and have to protect politicians who in a just world would be horsewhipped and run out of town on a rail. You might be in the military, and have to serve under contemptible creeps who are betraying our nation.
But on the bright side, at least you don’t have to imperil your soul by trudging out in front of cameras and trying to defend this train wreck of an administration.
2. You may have had to watch while our egregious left has piled up trillions in debt; let in millions of illegals; used a pandemic to manipulate an election and cripple our economy, and committed the worst foreign policy blunder in US history.
But on the bright side, at least nobody is tweeting about Rosie O’Donnell’s continual struggle with her weight anymore.
Ugh. I can’t do it. I can’t find any real silver linings in this terrible time.
Ooh, I’ve got one. Because our military is so much better at their job than this administration is, they were able to take out a couple of evil ISIS members with a drone-fired missile the other day.
Eager for some good news, I read a story in PJ Media about that strike, and learned a few of the most satisfying details from a military story since our special forces used super-cool war dog Conan to help corner and kill smelly ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.
On Friday, we used a drone called the Reaper – greatest drone name ever, by the way! – but we used an innovative warhead for the first time. This one doesn’t explode. Instead – and I quote – it “ejects a halo of six large blades stowed inside the skin of the missile, which deploy at the last minute to shred the target of the strike.”
The military likes this because it allows destruction of a target with less chances of civilian casualties. But I LOVE it, because – in case you forgot this part — it EJECTS A HALO OF BLADES!
The official military name for the warhead is the R9X. Because the military is much less great at weapon naming than it is at killing bad guys.
But the unofficial name of the warhead is amazing! They call it the “flying ginsu.”
That’s it. As long as we’re a nation who can come up with the constitution, the second amendment, the Mustang (plane and car), Johnny Cash and the Flying Ginsu, we’re not out of the fight.
Some day soon Feckless Joe is going to be gone. We’ll have a lot of cleaning up to do, but we’re still going to be here!It’s been a long 4 years, and an even longer 29 weeks!
Martin Simpson 