I’ve never enjoyed those social media posts people use to idealize their lives, and generate envy in their viewers.
You know the types: “Here we are on the Amalfi Coast, with our two daughters. The one leaning on the Ferrari is the supermodel; the one in the back seat is the one who just got the Fullbright. We’re about to drive down to the dock and take a ferry to the island in the azure waters of the bay – the second one on the right. We just bought that.”
Having said that, I know that I’m sidling up to being obnoxious, but I spent this past weekend with some luminaries at CO’s place in Boca, and tomorrow my wife and I are going up to Maine for a week visiting great friends on Mount Desert Island.
I know. I feel sheepish even writing about this. But at the risk of sounding like one of “those people,” I’ve got to share just a little.
The Economics Correspondent (Chris Silber) came from the West Coast, and the Correspondent for Conspiracy Theories and Ill-Advised Speculation and his wife were there, along with CO and the COW. We had a great dinner, and Chris taught me a little about good wine, two bottles of which he had brought with him.
I learned about corkage fees, and the five-tier Bordeaux Wine Classification that was created in 1855 and is still used today. CO and the COW were charming and gracious, and Mark told some stories about from his and CO’s high school days – which are naturally classified, and disclosure of which would place my life in danger.
After dinner we retired to CO’s house, where Sandra joined us, and we talked into the night on topics as diverse as politics (foreign and domestic), business strategy, stories of businessmen who torpedoed their careers with sex scandals, and little-known horror movies.
The next day the six of us went on a boat-ride with two other guys, both of whom were also refugees from the People’s Republic of Chicago. One of them lives on the intercoastal, and (as you may have guessed) owns a beautiful boat, which we took through a watery corridor of amazing houses and then out onto the ocean. After a seaside lunch, we headed back to home base on the intercoastal again.
A highlight of the return trip was passing another large boat with a dozen or more young women in small bikinis on deck. The males on our vessel noticed. Then the females on our vessel pointed out the giant flag on the other boat: “Trump. He’ll Be Back!”
And then we males said, “Oh yeah. A flag.” And we commented on the intelligence and good character of the young women on that boat.
Strangely enough, as we were departing, the one police boat on the water weaved through 40 other boats and boarded the one with the be-thonged Trump fans on it. What are the odds?
Insert your own “checking for flotation devices” joke here.
I couldn’t stay for the live music portion of Saturday evening, but am told that a grand time was had by all.
I’d like to thank the lovely and gracious COW, and the equally gracious and almost as lovely CO, along with Chris, Mark, Sandra, Alan and Captain Ron for an entertaining and enlightening weekend. I was always the least cultured and intelligent person in the room, but that meant that I could improve myself by soaking up the conversation and the culture from those around me!
I can’t leave town – or end this column – without commenting on Biden’s horrendous speech/tirade from last Thursday.
Everyone has mentioned the terrible visuals, and so will I. But the content was even worse.
The over-the-top demonization of his opponents would only work for the hardest of hard-core lefties. And since that group makes up only a small sliver of the population (thank a merciful God), that negativity was a very bad choice.
He also pegged the hypocrisy meter about 20 times during the speech:
“Don’t be angry!” he shouted, angrily.
“The other side loves hatred and darkness!” he snarled hatefully, from a circle of light surrounded by ominous darkness, in front of a brick wall where a bunch of Aztec warriors had apparently just ensured a good harvest by opening the carotid arteries of a thousand captured children.
“You can’t love your country only when you win!” hollered the guy representing the party who insists that Gore won in 2000, CAW CAW won in 2016, and Stacey Abrams is the legitimate governor of Georgia and the President of Earth.
More seriously, we are going to have to force Brandon to define exactly who he means by MAGA Republicans. (Not that WE don’t know who he means: everyone except Bill Kristol, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and several dozen RINOs who hate Republicans.)
Because after making a few rhetorical throat-clearing gestures over the last month or so – “Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans are MAGA…” – he’s slid straight into vague defamation about “extreme ideology, not respecting the constitution or the rule of law, etc.”
But if you listen to the few specifics he offers – being pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, wanting a border – you realize that he is smearing 99% of Republicans, and around 70% of the entire country.
After the speech, you knew how badly it had gone by watching the MSM trying to downplay or deny its ugliness. It was especially painful to watch poor KJP – she might be inept at her job, but she is attracted to women, so behold the historicity! –struggle to insist that the speech was both hunky AND dory.
I especially like her – and the rest of the MSM’s – insistence that the speech was NOT political.
Here’s an actual quote from the speech, which I am not making up: “We need everyone to do their part, so speak up, speak out, get engaged, vote, vote, vote!”
Get it? You all need to get out there and vote, vote VOTE!!! … a-politically.
And then there were the visuals. Oh, the visuals!
A pulsing, angry, emotionally “hot” red color palette, especially when an angry old man is set to deliver a relentlessly angry speech?
Though, come to think of it, in light of Biden’s economic policies, red was the appropriate color.
And in light of his abortion policies, red was the appropriate color.
And in light of the color of the faces of right-thinking Americans if they tried to watch that travesty, red was the appropriate color.
And I know there’s at least one Democrat pol to whom all of that over-saturated red appealed to.
That’s right: Lizzie Warren. #wemustneverstopmockingher
I kid Grandma Squanto. But in reality, her native coloring WAS represented in that eerie tableaux.
Remember the glowing white gloves on the two Marines in the shadows behind Biden….
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the Democrats’ media-savvy brain trust got together and came up with those optics:
Flunky #1: So listen, I was thinking of a setting for Biden’s big speech. How about Independence Hall?
Flunky #2: Ugh. I bet those MAGA types just love the name of that place. Why couldn’t the Founders have built Dependence Hall?
Flunky #1: HA! The mouth-breathing deplorables would have torn the place down immediately.
Flunky #3: Hey, Flunky #2, did you just capitalize “Founders?”
Flunky #2: What? No! I’m speaking, not writing. We don’t capitalize words when we speak.
Flunky #3: Oh yeah? What about every time we say, “Racism?”
Flunky #1: Or “Sexism?”
Flunky #3: Or “Pay your Fair Share?”
Flunky #2: Okay, okay, point taken. But I was certainly not capitalizing the “Founders.”
Flunky #3: I hope not. Bunch of slave-holding, capitalist, gun fetishizers!
Flunky #1: Can we get back on track here? Does Independence Hall work for everyone?
Flunky #3: Okay, but we’ve got to light it in some dramatic way, so that nobody will recognize it, and actually think about [shudder] “independence.”
Flunky #2 (after a contemplative pause): I’ve got it. Let’s base the lighting on Albert Speer’s drawings of Hitler’s planned office in the remodeled Reichstag if they’d won the war!
Flunky #3: I like that! It will appeal to the MAGA yokels on a subconscious level.
Flunky #2 (nodding): And to our voters on a conscious level, since they’re always up for a socialist workers’ party vibe.
Flunky #1: That sounds good, but I think it still needs something more. (He doodles on his “Workers of the World Unite!” embossed note pad for a moment.) I’ve got it! We’ll start with Hitler’s office, but then mix in a little of Satan’s vacation home!
Flunky #2: Ooh, let’s run with that.
Flunky #3: What would you think about bringing him on with “Hail to the Chief,” but then fading that into “Sympathy for the Devil?”
Flunky #1: Yeah, everybody loves the Stones! And how about we replace the presidential seal on the podium with a little Dante, “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here”?
Flunky #2: I don’t like it… (he pauses for a beat)… I LOVE it!
And, scene.
Avenatti/Lucifer 2024!
Martin Simpson 