If only his legs could reach that far, Rep. Jerry Nadler would be kicking himself now.You remember Congressman Nadler, don't you?
Ace had this photo up over at his place, with a hilarious legend. I was unable to copy the picture for some reason, but the legend read, "The last time I saw a zipper that long it was on a sleeping bag".
Also found at Ace, this outstanding Downfall parody.
Update.
This one Tweet would be enough to condemn Jonah Goldberg to permanent irrelevance (even without all the other permanently disqualifying Tweets):
Look, I think Mueller had a bad day. I think his performance bolstered the case that his staff ran the show. But Mueller also demonstrated that he is a vastly better man than Trump. Trump heaps gross scorn on him for two years and Mueller refused a single ad hominem [emphasis mine - Paco].Mueller presided over a two-year, hyper-partisan investigation, initially instigated (and funded) by Democrats, run by Hillary supporters, in the nearest thing to a coup this country has ever seen, and Mueller is "a vastly better man than Trump" because he didn't call him names in public testimony? Given the highly credible charges against Mueller's fairness and motives by a not insignificant number of people in government, the press and elsewhere, he would have had to be far more senile than he appeared today to make nakedly ad hominem attacks against Trump. I mean, why bother? The whole investigation was an ad hominem attack. with no genuine basis in evidence at all.
Oh, and how many innocent people has Trump hounded and persecuted to the point of suicide? Are any of Trump's advisers long-time friends and allies who are responsible for putting innocent people in jail, and bullying suspects in criminal cases by threatening them and their families with financial destitution? Is that the kind of behavior, and are those the kinds of personal associations, one would expect from the "better" man?
Update II.
Haw! Rush Limbaugh: "Nadler and Schiff combined are not smart enough to beat a hamster playing Jeopardy."
8 comments:
Why should Mueller have made ad hominem attacks against Trump when his flying monkeys in the media, the entertainment industry, and yes, even in Congress, were so willing to do it for him?
So I guess Jonah is now idly writing Mueller's name in his Trapper-Keeper, huh?
What an idiotic comparison to make. It's the same level of logic that denounces Kavanaugh for becoming angry at false rape charges, as indicative of unsuitable temperament.
Good points all around.
Everyone should heap scorn on civil servants all the time, they're paid enough and it brings them back to reality. It's not a theocracy and the rest of us have to endure the same.
Trump's butter-you-up/tear-you-down style is a refreshing change and it works, even when he gets things wrong at first, which doesn't matter in business as long as you show you can get on track. Most people get that I hope.
Pearl-clutching Like Goldberg's is not a valid argument. 'My dear! Such trash they let in the country club these days...'.
Also communication beats silent pose in the age of Twitter. Trump is riding the modern wave, which is good for a current leader.
As an outsider, can I say I find the American expression 'speak to...' evasive?
Question and answer. You don't 'address' a question or 'speak to' it unless you intend to evade it. 'Answer the f**king question!'. Otherwise it allows politicians to do their usual kabuki dance.
There are a lot of Americanisms I've only begun to understand recently - I used to think I understood them but found I didn't. But this one is letting your politicians off the hook. As we don't use the expression we don't have that problem (we have lost of other problems though of course). At gatherings here the crowd would chant 'answer the question' until they did, at least in my day.
Great observations, Bruce. And I am in complete agreement with you on the horrible expression "speak to". Like most buzz words and contrived expressions, it is purposely somewhat evasive, and symptomatic of lazy thinking (by which I mean that these expressions are frequently used in lieu of intelligent explication, by people who either don't really know what they want to say, or are trying hard to avoid saying what they really mean).
I encountered so many annoying semantic constructions during my time in Washington, I could probably write a whole article on the subject. One that started driving me crazy was an executive's expression of what I imagine was quasi-agreement. He would say, "I don't disagree with that", or "I don't disagree with what you're saying". I finally just blurted out, "Does that mean you agree, then?" Sort of took him aback. Another word that became a legendary cliché was "robust". In formal meetings and reports, virtually everyone started using it, to mean everything from "more detailed" to "more focused" to "more frequent" - it became a way of telegraphing thoughts that appeared to still be in the larval stage. I had a bit of a blurting problem in those days when it came to this sort of stuff, and I once called out the Chairman's Chief of Staff for a memo he had written: "Can we lose the word 'robust'? You've used it twice in the same short paragraph. Also, if you had to use another word to describe what you mean, what word would you choose?" Fellow at least had the decency to see my point. I finally noticed that many of these irritating words and expressions were originating with a mid-level executive whom I actually rather liked and respected. He was a former Army officer and West Point grad; I always wondered if that background had something to do with the phenomenon.
Greg Gutfield on Fox: Democrats wanted so badly for Mueller to give his report life. Instead, he took it to the woods and shot it.
Short and sweet and funny, just the way I like my news analysis.
He was a former Army officer and West Point grad; I always wondered if that background had something to do with the phenomenon.
Very likely. The Army lurves them some jargon, they do.
But the propagation of those buzz words through the civilian ranks ... ... that's pure arse kissing and groupthink. Jargon mutates into buzz words on the lips of bureaucrats.
The agency that I retired from (the US Army Corps of Engineers) has a civilian workforce with military leadership. (Seriously -- the office dynamics can be bizarre.) I used to (quietly) snicker during meetings where senior employees would deploy such buzz words, without any embarrassment, even though they had no idea what they meant. One supervisor had the grace to ask me for an explanation of one, knowing that I spoke Army. Oy. After I explained it to him, people stopped using it.
The point relevant to this post is that, yes, scorn should be heaped upon civil servants. All too often, they act like a flock of sheep without a sheepdog, and will do some really stupid things just to cover their six.
Further, they often will weasel word their way through situations in order to shift blame and/or avoid responsibility.
I saw a lot of that during Mueller's testimony. Nolte is likely correct, but I can't help but think that some of Mueller's performance was an attempt to gain sympathy by portraying a doddering old man. But being broken on the wheel (metaphorically speaking) in a public forum could very well produce the same physical response. Shame and guilt are powerful emotions. Never think otherwise.
And just to clarify: if Mueller does have any shame and guilt, it's probably because he failed, most spectacularly, to bring down Trump. His peers and masters are likely most displeased. I don't believe he would have shame and guilt over being a career corruptocrat and professional crap weasel.
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