Out of the past

 Politicians who lie about history should only do so before ignorant, adoring cultists -- like Trump comparing himself favorably with Lincoln.  (Happy birthday, Abe!)  A wider, better-informed audience will slap them down.  When Robert Kennedy, Jr., helped himself to Uncle Jack's 1960 campaign song in an expensive Superbowl ad, he had to apologize to his own family, nearly all of whom have expressed support for Joe Biden and disapproval of Junior's anti-vax position.  Kennedy blamed the ad on American Values 2024, which took $15 million from Trump supporter Tim Mellon.  He's just a really generous guy, no ulterior motives here.

Meanwhile on CNN, Patti Davis was telling Jim Acosta that her father, Ronald Reagan, would be less than enchanted with today's Republican Party.  No problem with the racism and demonization of the poor, but he would have hated to see Markwayne Mullin and Sean O'Brien nearly throw down "in the Senate chamber."  So undignified.  "He would be heartbroken and horrified about where America is and how mired we are in anger, in violence, in disrespect for one another."  And his tales about the "welfare queen" in her Cadillac were eclipsed long ago by Trump's lies.  

Reagan's descent into Alzheimer's during his second term was artfully concealed by his staff and the media alike, and the MSM seem determined not to be complicit again, jumping on every Biden gaffe and memory lapse -- who can remember which French president was in office when? -- as if it were a funny Reagan joke about bombing the Soviet Union.  The narrative got a boost when the long-forgotten special counsel report on Biden's possession of classified documents burst into the news last week.  

Merrick Garland probably thought that since Biden was clearly unaware he even had the papers, and reacted promptly and correctly when he found out, the investigation should be assigned to an obvious Biden hater with impeccable rightwing credentials.  (Clerked for William Rehnquist, Trump-appointed US Attorney for Maryland.)  Hur's report found no reason to proceed against Biden and had to settle for questioning his judgment and mental acuity.  Despite an impressive education, Hur's only claim to medical expertise is that his father is an anesthesiologist.  So yeah, Democrats were rightly enraged, comparing the report to Comey's late-2016 pseudo-revelation about Hillary Clinton's emails. 

(It was for the Guardian to point out that Hur interviewed Biden shortly after last October's Hamas terrorist arrack in Israel.  He may have been a little distracted.)

Well, it's only February.  Most people are only dimly aware that this is an election year.  Wait until they start to actually listen to the candidates.  And look at them.

This spokesman for mental hygiene now sounds exactly like a mob boss promising to make our allies an offer they can't refuse.  Since he still doesn't understand how NATO works (and you have to wonder if anyone has tried to explain), he told a mob in South Carolina he would "encourage them [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.  You gotta pay.  You gotta pay your bills."  Nice continent you got here -- be a shame if someone was to nuke it.  Remembering what state he was in, he decided it was time to go after Nikki Haley with one of his "sir" stories about how she came to his Palm Beach eyesore and promised never to run against him.  "Where's her husband?  Oh, he's away.  He's away.  What happened to her husband?  What happened to her husband?  Where is he?  He's gone.  He knew.  He knew."

What Michael Haley "knew" was unspecified, but he's not gone.  He's a National Guardsman deployed to somewhere in Africa and therefore one of Trump's "losers" and "suckers."  Trump has never tried to conceal his contempt for troops, living or dead, except when lying about how weak the military was when he inherited it from Obama and how he personally restored it to glory, apart from those magnets the Navy insists on using.  But when Nikki Haley says he "never even got near a military uniform," she's not correct.  Here he is at the reform school/military academy where his despairing parents sent him:

 

 Did you know he's also responsible for the success of Taylor Swift?  And like Johnny Fontane, she owes her godfather a service.  You see, he takes credit for affixing his chimp-EEG-on-crack signature to the Music Modernization Act of 2018, the work of Orrin Hatch and Bob Goodlatte.  This alone is the reason for Swift's success, apparently, and for her to endorse Joe Biden would be "disloyal to the man who made her so much money."  Talent may also have played a part.  Swift has not yet endorsed anyone, disappointing the conspiracists who predicted she would do so following a Biden-engineered victory for Kansas City.  Strangely, Biden has not claimed credit for the overtime win, but he had fun trolling the trolls.

"Just like we drew it up."

I have decided to take the Shakespearean view, because no one wrote more deeply about the challenges and terrors of leadership.  In a choice between King Lear and King Richard III, it's what the kids call a no-brainer.  We learn little of Lear's reign, coming in on its final day.  He must have been a successful ruler who now wants to bring stability to his country in an age before women could rule by dividing it among his daughters and their husbands.  This is catastrophic, but it didn't need to be.  Lear's only fault is growing old.  Richard, on the other hand (according to Shakespeare), was born evil and that's that.

See?  Now I can relax.