I missed a WAPO op-ed last week.
Actually, I think I’ve missed every WA-PO op-ed since late May of 1972. Because that’s when I turned 10, and officially became too wise and world-weary to trust anything I read in the WAPO.
But I saw this opinion piece, one week late, because it made its way into my news feed as a great example of MSM imbecility. You may have seen it too. It’s the one titled, “I’m a clown. Donald Trump is not one of us.”
It appeared over the picture of a guy in a bowler hat and a red nose, and my first thoughts were: “I thought Ted Kennedy was dead,” and, “Where’d he get that bowler hat?”
But no, the piece wasn’t written by the late drunken weather balloon from Massachusetts. Its author is an actual clown named Tim Cunningham, and the op-ed is one long, unfunny joke to the effect that we shouldn’t call Trump a clown, because being a clown is a noble profession, and should be taken way more seriously than a fascist like Trump.
I’ll bet that Jeff Bezos is just thrilled with his management team’s efforts to restore the Washington Post’s credibility.
But I’ve got news for Mr. Cunningham. Trump is not a fascist, and clowns are mostly not funny.
How un-funny are clowns?
Three of the most famous clowns in the world were John Wayne Gacy, Jerry Lewis in that Holocaust movie (look it up), and that super-creepy guy who lived in a sewer and had a disturbing affinity for frightening children.
No, not Joe Biden (RIP). Although if you’ve seen any of those photos of him sniffing the hair of traumatized kids, that’s an image that will stay with you. Also, he did that one trick where he pulled a bowel movement out of his hat.
The Pope was expecting a rabbit, and was not pleased.
Also, rumors that Biden once tried to make a very simple balloon animal, and the secret service had to intervene because he nearly strangled himself have not been confirmed.
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at the WAPO editorial meeting when they came up with the idea of asking a leftist clown – of all people! – what he thinks about politics. Because who needs a Marxist Abbott and Costello when we already have the comic stylings of Crockett and the Booty in congress?
(Yes, I know: that would be a great name for a wacky FM “Morning Zoo” DJ team. And in a sane world, that would be the most prestigious job that Jasmine and AOC could aspire to.)
Speaking of beclowning oneself, did you catch Grandma Squanto’s attempt to dunk on Trump on Wednesday? She tried to play the corruption card against Trump. (By the way, have you ever seen a Democrat pack of cards? All four queens are scowling gender feminists, so naturally, all four kings are suicide kings. And the Jacks can all turn into Jills, somehow. And there are still four suits, but diamonds are “corruption,” hearts are “weird sex stuff,” clubs are “sexism,” and “racism” is…. I’m not saying.)
You could say that Lizzie’s attempt at a card trick blew up in her own face, as if someone had rigged her peace pipe with an exploding charge, like a Dakota (Sioux) Daffy Duck. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)
In an X post, she presented a chart listing six entities and how much they donated to the Trump library. Above the chart she wrote, “Government should work for the people, not whichever giant company or foreign government can dump the most money into the president’s future library.”
Never mind that most of the billionaires who donated in 2020 gave to the Democrats, or that Cackling Que Mala was given $2 billion to blow (phrasing) in a few months.
Just look at Lizzie’s six categories.
She doesn’t even bother to try in the last one; the “Who” is “other special interests” and the amount listed is “unknown millions.” Which is brilliant! “I accuse you of taking…some money, from…somebody.”
But the other five are hilarious. See if you can spot the pattern:
Paramount/CBS News gave $16 million. Meta gave $22 million. Disney/ABC News gave $15 million. X gave $10 million. And Qatar gave $400 million (Jet)
The Qatari jet was not given to Trump, but to the United States, and if the gift ever does happen, the jet will act as Air Force One, and then go to his library. He will never have any private use of it at all.
(I still don’t think that he should accept the jet, but it is not personally enriching corruption like – oh, I don’t know – [begin Kinison filter] HAVING YOUR HOOKER-BANGING ADDICT SON COLLECT BAGS OF CASH FROM THE CHI-COMS! OHH! OHHHHH! [end Kinison filter])
The remaining four examples were not bribes, happily given by fat cats wanting to buy Trump’s favor. They were ALL lawsuit settlements, grudgingly handed over to their hated nemesis by corrupt MSM power players who had slandered him so blatantly that they stood to lose many millions more if they had gone to court, where Trump would have beaten them like Cuddly Kilmar beat his wife.
If I thought Elizabeth Warren was capable of feeling shame, I might say, “Boy, is her face red!” (#wemustneverstop) But I’ll just leave it at, “Nice forked tongue, Lizzie. (#mockingher)
Finally, Scott Jennings continues to be the only reason to ever watch CNN, and as of Tuesday, he has run his record to 147-0 in his battles against hapless leftist panelists. The latest contender was Democrat Strategerist Julie Roginsky, with an attempted assist from host Abby Phillip.
The on-screen chyron defined the topic this way: “The Debate: US Inflation Rises as Trump’s Tariffs Push Up Prices.” That subject should offer Ragin’ Roginsky a chance to score at least a few minor points. I mean sure, when Biden took Trump’s 1.5% inflation rate up to 9% in 14 months, CNN probably called that “a barely noticeable bump,” whereas an increase of .2% from May to June under Trump gets WWIII-level headlines.
So how does Roginsky kick aside a chance for a tiny victory and grab hold of defeat with both bony hands? When Jennings suggests that the current small increase is no reason for panic, she says, “When we were promised on August 15th last year that the price of eggs, the price of bacon, of apples—”
Obviously at this point she was going to say, “would be down.” But once he heard “eggs,” Jennings jumped in, as one does when an opponent makes a mistake. Because of all the things she could cite, she chose the one grocery item that was hyped in the news before the election and inauguration, and that everyone knows has dropped in price.
So Jennings says, “The price of eggs are down.”
If that segment had been a fencing competition, a little buzzer would have sounded, and a ref would have announced a strike. Or a stab. Or whatever they call it when one fencer skewers the other’s thorax. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the fencing analogy, since I obviously don’t know much about it.)
But apparently Roginsky’s thorax is as numb as her skull, because she offered a meaningless rebuttal. “Year over year, eggs are up 27%.”
Jennings shook his head as if he didn’t think she’d really said that, and replied, “Since he took office, they’re down.”
And Roginsky insisted, “Year over year!”
Think about that. Roginsky thought that she could score a point by saying that since last July 15th, egg prices have gone up. But since Joe Biden was still the president for six more months – during which egg prices nearly doubled – she surely couldn’t be dumb enough to claim that Trump was responsible for the increase in egg prices when he had no ability to influence egg prices, could she?
Don’t call her Shirley. But you can certainly call her dumb. Because that IS what she was claiming. And Jennings’ response was the only sane one: since Trump took office and had the chance to influence egg prices, they’ve gone down.
This is the kind of dispute that could be solved in 5 seconds by looking up egg prices, which reporter Joe Concha did (but CNN didn’t). And it turns out that the national average price of eggs (according to TradingEconomics) when Trump took office was around $6.60 a dozen. Because Biden needlessly killed 4 million chickens in his last days in office – and because dead chickens lay surprisingly few eggs, for you city slickers out there – the price climbed to a little over $8 in the first week of March. Since then, it has plunged to $2.89 this week.
So Jennings was right. But Abby Phillip – noticing that Roginsky had suffered a serious thorax poke – put that weird fencing strainer thing on her face and rushed in to help her slow-witted friend.
To wit, “Let’s not fight over statistics here.” Oh good, maybe Abby knows a chicken’s hind-end from a hole in the ground— “She’s right, year over year, they’re up significantly.”
Good lord!
Since a good thorax-piercing apparently cuts off blood flow to the brain, Roginsky stepped on the same rake again, in this quote which I could not make up, no matter how much bourbon I drank:
“Let’s be clear. He promised three things: the price of eggs, bacon and apples were going to go down. I can quote him, it was on August 15th of last year…. All of them are up. They’re up year over year, and that’s a fact.”
Yes it is. An utterly irrelevant fact.
As she pushed on and doubled down on the year-over-year thing, Jennings was finally exasperated enough to say, “You are literally lying—”
And then the tide of imbecility rose up all around the table, with several people saying, “Whoa!” and Abby jumped in again, unknowingly taking another skinny fencing sword in the soup-strainer mask:
Abby: Before you accuse her of lying, I literally just went over this. She is correct that year over year—
Scott (speaking slowly and emphatically): Since Donald Trump took office, what’s happened to the eggs?
Abby: Oh my god, do you not understand—
After more insane crosstalk that lasted for the longest minute of your life, Abby accused Jennings of derailing the conversation, and ended it this way: “I think people have the ability to understand the difference between the price of eggs today and the price of eggs a year ago today. Versus what you would prefer to talk about, which is the price of eggs when Donald Trump was inaugurated. You’re just talking about two different time horizons.”
YES! He “would prefer to talk about” the relevant time horizon, rather than one that holds Trump responsible for what Biden did as president.
Whatever else you can say about that segment, it’s clear that Jennings foiled them again. (Boom! Late, game-saving proper fencing reference. Because I looked it up, and a fencing stick is called a “foil.”)
Whatever CNN is paying Scott Jennings, it’s not enough.
And whatever they’re paying Julie Roginsky and Abby Phillip, it’s way too much.
So…
Roginsky/Phillip, 2028!
Also,
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 