By David Bloviator
Political Editor
with A.J. Liebling, Meta-content Generator
The news continues to be unendurably bleak. The burdens on most Americans have become crushing, except for those lucky few white men who have cushy no-heavy-lifting jobs dispensing platitudes on the New York Times Op-Ed Page or lush carried interests from financial finagling, held harmless from the foreseeable consequences of their lust for risk thanks to unlimited backstops of cash and credit from the Federal Reserve.
So what does this guy offer our suffering nation?
What tf is Complete National Disgrace Brooks talking about? Who's being coddled, other than overpaid liars on Schlox News, airlines and other huge businesses, and, of course, all Republican whackjobs?
We don't know and tbh we don't care. We've got bigger worms to fry today. Since CND Brooks never manages to mount anything that seems like an argument, we'll just run with the headline.
So who should we stop coddling today?
Come on down, The Lincoln Project. What is the Lincoln Project, you ask. Apparently it's a tiny bunch of Republican names who have decided that even they can't vote for America's #1 threat to public health and will therefore make the only logical, moral choice: Joe Biden. They made quite a splash on The Washington Post Op-Ed page this week:
When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. We are in extraordinary times, and we have chosen to put country over party — and former vice president Joe Biden is the candidate who we believe will do the same. . . . .
Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee and he has our support. Biden has the experience, the attributes and the character to defeat Trump this fall. Unlike Trump, for whom the presidency is just one more opportunity to perfect his narcissism and self-aggrandizement, Biden sees public service as an opportunity to do right by the American people and a privilege to do so.
They have gotten a lot of good press for their position, as obvious as it would seem to any carbon-based life form. But we take our ethical cues from Moral Mountain Dave, who showed us how it's done by dumping his first wife for his fruity research assistant whilst betraying his Jewish faith and people.
So we're going to apply the principle of “no coddling” to the Lincoln Project, as painful as it may be.
First who are these guys? (and they're almost all guys – who could have guessed?) They admit they are all Republicans who proudly supported inadequate reactionary war criminals like George W. Bush, and in 2016, given the chance to save America from the reign of President PAB, whiffed it.
Well, there's noted U Bum hater and high-paid lawyer/pol George Conway, who describes himself as “ a lawyer in New York City and a founding member of Checks & Balances, a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers organized to defend the rule of law.”
In fact, in the same Washington Post you can read him defending the rule of law that prevented the Governor of a State from trying to permit his state's voters to cast a ballot without forfeiting their lives during an unprecedented pandemic.
He's best known, aside from his happy marriage, as being instrumental in concocting the perjury trap that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton following his false testimony in a collateral matter arising out of the ridiculous Paula Jones civil action.
Then there's long time Republican fixer/mouthpiece/hatchet man Rick Wilson, who's also getting good notices for his we admit pretty funny attacks on U Bum and his hapless enablers. But the laffs and applause can't quite drown out his past:
During the 2008 presidential election, Wilson was responsible for the creation of ads attacking then-Sen. Barack Obama (D) for his relationship with pastor Jeremiah Wright. According to Politico, Wilson began crafting the attack after a video was released showing Wright "damning the country, criticizing Israel, faulting U.S. policy for the Sept. 11 attacks and generally lashing out against white America." Wilson created the ads for the National Republican Trust PAC. He told Buzzfeed that the ad was designed to change the tone of the election, saying, "That ad launched into the teeth of three very negative trends for the GOP: the markets had tanked, McCain’s campaign was collapsing and the American press was so deeply in love with Barack Obama that if they’d found a dead girl in the trunk of his car, they’d have shrugged it off. Everything was excused, every sin forgiven."
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| It's not like Steve Schmidt has ever been wrong before |
It was Mr. Schmidt who first championed Sarah Palin as Mr. McCain’s running mate, a bold move, he told Mr. McCain, that could win him the White House. Instead, her selection was widely viewed as one of the most calamitous political judgments in modern presidential politics.
There's a man whose judgment you can take to the bank, although maybe not if you want an emergency loan. He also was involved in the first of three farcical efforts to install a safe white male billionaire in the White House.
Let's not coddle the women of the Lincoln Project either, like New Hampshire's Jennifer Horn:
We could go on listing the greatest hits of these Bush apologists and flacks forever. But let's pause for a moment to hear why the Lincoln Project brains trust support Joe Biden: “Biden will be the superior leader during the crisis of our generation.”
There's more inspirational gab about what a great guy Joe Biden is. What there isn't is any mention of the policies that Joe Biden will carry out as President: expanding access to health care for all, taking strong action to address the coming crisis of climate change, restoring honesty, competence, and the rule of law to the Executive Branch, raising taxes on the rich, rebuilding our shattered infrastructure, addressing the historic racism and misogyny that have crippled the lives of a majority of Americans, and rebuilding our shattered foreign policy, not on bullying, lies, and fomenting war, but on respect for our allies, advancing human rights, and negotiating effective agreements with our adversaries, like the Iran nuclear deal.
We suspect that the worthies of the Lincoln Project didn't address Biden's policies for reasons other than lack of space. The most likely explanation is that they don't agree with the policies that a President Biden and a Democratic Congress would put into action and enact into law. It is equally likely that if Biden is elected, these same Lincoln Projectors will return to their historic advocacy on behalf of privileged white men, or in other words, the Republican platform.
In fact, we are willing to guarantee that if Biden is elected, the 0.0001% of the Republican Party represented by the Lincoln Projectiles will claim that their support was instrumental. They will also claim that in exchange for that crucial support, Biden should abandon the policies on which he ran and support their program of tax cuts for the rich and bats*** crazy Catholic extremists and rapists for the Supreme Court.
Ultimately the Lincoln Logs are peddling the fantasy that President PAB is a shocking departure from Republican norms. Here's an example from Lincoln Penny Rick Wilson, op. cit.:
This @joshuabickel photo is a window into Esoteric Trumpism: pic.twitter.com/b8FmDXbUQL— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 15, 2020
He's referring to a recent near-riot demanding that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer be locked up for advocating science-based public health protections. Notice that Wilson attributes that insanity to something call “Esoteric Trumpism.”
The uncoddled truth is, according to the real journalists at the Michigan Advance, um, less esoteric:
And let’s not be naïve about the politics involved. Team Trump clearly freaked out when they saw Whitmer (who you may have heard is on the VP shortlist) score 20 points higher than him in must-win Michigan on handling COVID-19. That’s when you saw activists start spreading memes lying that American flags and baby car seats were banned just to gin up stories in right-wing media and score political points.
Wednesday’s raucous protest may have been an astro-turf operation (shockingly, yes, a DeVos-funded group was involved), but this was no Brooks Brothers Riot. (Sorry, for folks who are not old, that was the protest during the the George W. Bush-Al Gore 2000 debacle in Florida where snappy-suit-clad dudes demanded votes stop being counted). [And Nicolle Wallace – Ed.]
Many Republican leaders and their wealthy donors didn’t show up to the one in Lansing — which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the safety risks involved. But why put yourself and your family in harm’s way when you can outsource protesting to folks who think conspiracy king Alex Jones’ “magic” remedies will keep the evil vibes away?
Yup, it's not esoteric at all – it's the Republican Party, powered by white bigotry and dark money. Same as it ever was.
So if we are being true to the ol' Perfesser's sublime moral imperatives, we have to stop coddling the Lincoln Memorialists who are at root peddling a false narrative about the relationship between U Bum ideology and Republican principles. The true nature of that relationship is identity.
And if truth in advertising is important, we suggest that these Lincoln Continentals brand themselves honestly. They should call themselves The Hoover Project, in honor of the man whose principles they reflect and embody.
In 1932, President Herbert Hoover, campaigning for re-election when America was as paralyzed by depression as it is now by pandemic, said that Mr. F. D. Roosevelt and the Democrats were “proposing changes and so-called new deals which would destroy the very foundations of our American system.”
Do the Lincoln Projecteers disagree with Mr. Republican? Nothing in what they have ever said or advocated for now or then suggests that they do. And that's why they don't deserve coddling now.
If all is right with the moral universe, I expect that this faithful application of his principles will incite Complete National Disgrace Brooks to treat me to a sopprassata sub for lunch as soon as it is safe to do so. Onions and hot peppers only please.
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