Free-flowing White House Verse

Sure, there's lots of construction noise, and construction lawsuit noise, and some destruction of construction that was underway but didn't meet the Builder-in-Chief's vision, but even with all of that,  there was still plenty of arguing and yelling and ketchup-squishing noise that made it out into the public realm. 

I won't reveal my sources for this; let's just say they're very well-placed, like a good microphone or something. I might write a book, but first I'd probably need to officially be a reporter for the Fake News, to bump up my viewership.

The (alleged) words of the FOTUS are easily identifiable. Others (allegedly) involved? Secretaries Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and Scott Bessent; Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg; and yours truly. Let the free verse fly, like the American Flag over Greenland!

Talk Like Nobody's Listening (or yell, if you want)

We need more munitions! The Biden and Obama administrations depleted our reserves!

We need more munitions! The Biden administration gave all our weapons to Ukraine! I will end the war in Ukraine on Day One! I will win the Nobel Prize – maybe two, and Obama only has one!

We're fighting Iran because Israel said they were going in, and if we didn’t go with them, we’d look weak, and the world would be a more dangerous place!

We’re fighting Iran because it is TWO WEEKS AWAY from having ‘the nuclear’ and we can’t let that happen! We are winning the war! We have won the war! We will win the war!  We are winning the war! We are playing 5-D chess; they are playing ‘Fast and Furious’ with the ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST, and we won’t let that happen! The Bored of Peace will act swiftly, on my order to Jared, to end all the hostilities and develop plans for MULTIPLE Gold Coast Rivieras on the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of America, and the Gulf Station in Winthrop, MA – they are ALL ripe for development!

We need more money from Congress because we are almost out of munitions!

We’re out of munitions because I’ve been ending wars around the globe, including in Gaza, Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, the FIFA Soccer War, the Mulch War - that was BRUTAL but my Skid Steer of Peace has fixed that – we BURIED the opponent and Four Seasons Total Landscaping was declared the victor, by a pile! – and PakIndiaStan, where my tariffs stopped that war cold! NOBEL! NOBEL! NOBEL!

Holy crap, we have fewer munitions in the stockpile than we have barrels of oil in the strategic reserve – the Biden and Obama administrations were completely irresponsible!

Munitions are flowing in from all over the place to the US, where we do NOT have a munitions shortage!

Hi, Congress? It’s me, Pete - the Secretary of War, Tattoos, and Testosterone... we need way more manly dollars to make way more manly munitions. I'm in trouble here; can you help a guy out?

WE ARE NOT ALMOST OUT OF MUNITIONS – WE HAVE MANY MORE MUNITIONS THAN ANYONE ELSE, MORE MUNITIONS THAN ANY COUNTRY IN HISTORY! ANYONE SAYING WE ARE OUT OF MUNITIONS IS A COMMUNIST TRAITOR WHO DESERVES THE ULTIMATE PENALTY! KASH PATEL IS OFFERING A $50,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION ON THE WHEREABOUTS OF THESE EVIL AMERICA-HATING DUMOCRATS!

We have directed munitions companies to tell us, within 21 days, how the hell they’re going to start delivering way more munitions way more faster than they ever dreamed they could, and how the hell they’re going to expand manufacturing facilities here in the US and hire American workers to make them, and oh, by the way, you can undocumented workers who will work for way less and save us money so we can afford to pay you for the munitions; we’ll tax the crap out of them, not fine you for hiring them, and deport them after we have the munitions we need to solve the shortage we don't have.

WE DO NOT HAVE A MUNITIONS SHORTAGE! THE REFLECTION POND WAS VANDALIZED! JEANNINE PIRRO FOLDED LIKE A COCKTAIL UMBRELLA! I HAVE ORDERED KASH PATEL TO OFFER A $50,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION PROVING JEANNINE PIRRO IS A LYING, TRAITOROUS DUMOCRAT!!

We expect the Strait of Hormuz to be fully open by Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, maybe by Friday. I’ll have a market-roiling update for you on the status by yesterday, in time for tomorrow’s market opening. And just like K-cars, the K-shaped economy is over – that should help manipulate things nicely, don’t you think?

FAKE NEWS!!! HER EMAILS!!! RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA!!! IT’S ALL FAKE NEWS! COMEY AND MARK KELLY ARE TRAITORS!!! SLEEPY JOE IS A TRAITOR!!! I WANT MY BALLROOM AND I WANT IT NOW!!!

Four Former Presidents on America at 250

In my post on Independence Day, I offered some thoughts on our country's semiquincentennial; here's a snippet.

I believe in our founding principles of equality and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. I believe we are a nation of immigrants. That includes my ancestor who came over on the Mayflower and the rest who started our various family lines here, and in my opinion, we need to remain one going forward. We are a nation of resisters, too, and need to remain one.

I believe we can continue our experiment and grow our nation, and that someone, somehow, will rise to the occasion, motivate all of us to become better Americans, and bring us back from what so often feels like the brink of disaster, if "man is indeed the rational, moral creature, capable of self-control for the greater good," as most thought in 1776, and as I remember most did in 1976 when I graduated high school.

In today's post, I've pulled together excerpts from the statements shared by our four former presidents, folks who fought for and gained the Oval Office, and who tried to lead us forward to what our founders envisioned - a more perfect union. I've linked their full statements as well, and yes, I'll do a deeper dive into the current president's thoughts in a separate post. 

First up? Bill Clinton. This excerpt follows comments on some of the day's hot topics, including ICE, war, the weaponization of the government, our history being rewritten, and what he calls "socialism for the super-rich."

Our Founders were wise when they gave us our mission to form a more perfect union.  They knew America would never be perfect but could always be better. That’s what they meant by “more perfect.”  We’ve done that by being courageous enough to acknowledge our flaws and missteps—and then bold enough to leave them behind for brighter tomorrows.

That’s the lesson of our first 250 years: we can always do better. In how we treat one another, in person and online; in building a better future for ourselves, our families, and our communities; and in standing up, showing up, and speaking out for our democracy.

There is still nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what’s right with America. We see it in the people lining up to vote, no matter how hard some may try to prevent them. We see it in those bringing groceries to their neighbors, donating to charities in record numbers, and serving their country and communities in countless ways. And we see it in the immigrants eager to bring their talents, hard work, and dreams to our country.

So today, celebrate the miracle that has brought us this far. I know I will, because I love my country so much. Then tomorrow, wake up, and ask yourself what part you will play to keep making our union more perfect by keeping our country in the future business. We owe that much to those who struggled and sacrificed to bring us this far, and to our children and grandchildren who soon will inherit that future.

Next? George W. Bush. His thoughts were released in a question-and-answer form, with the questions designed to elicit positive responses - and there is nothing wrong with taking a purely optimistic outlook on where we are today. 

What unites our country as we celebrate 250 years?  I view the freedoms that we cherish, the freedom to worship the way you want to worship, the freedom for the press to hold the powerful to account, the freedom to vote, the freedom to realize dreams as values that can unite us as we head for the next 250 years.

What gives you hope for our next 250 years? One of the facets of our society that is overlooked too often is the fact that there are many people, particularly the young, who are willing to help a neighbor in need, who man homeless shelters or help with soup kitchens without the government telling them to do so. They’re motivated by love of their fellow citizens. It is what I call the “armies of compassion.” I’m pleased to report the “armies of compassion” remain strong today, and so long as they do remain strong, I’m very optimistic about the future of the next generation.

What will our future success require? The next 250 years require Americans to be citizens, not spectators. [It] requires Americans to take an active interest in the health and welfare of our country and the communities in which they live, the schools, and the churches. It requires Americans to vote, to be involved in the democratic process. You may not like the outcomes of the elections, but one should focus on the fact that the capacity to vote to determine our country’s future is a powerful freedom, which we should honor.

Next? Barack Obama. This excerpt followed his thoughts on the Declaration of Independence, born of revolution, and its promises to the people of equality, freedom, and our rights.

It had not been done before, and the success of this experiment was never a given. In forming our union, the founders fell terribly short of the Declaration's promise, leaving slavery intact, allowing states to restrict the franchise to white men who owned property, but in drafting a constitution and a bill of rights, they did have the foresight to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect.

And over more than two centuries, through petitions and protests, marches and strikes, moral appeals from the pulpit and conversations at the family dinner table, men and women from all walks of life of every color, every faith, and every region took up the cause of democracy and made it their own, until "We the people" came to include not just some of us, but all of us.

Now we can't get complacent - we still have so much work to do to protect our democracy and build a future that is more equitable for all.

Finally, Joe Biden. After musing on founding the country on an idea, rather than things like geography or ethnicity - and how that's what makes America exceptional - he noted that over the course of our history, we've had to keep choosing the idea over all other options, and how that remains our obligation.

There’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it. Over and over, year after year. That’s not a burden. That’s what it means to be an American. 

250 years in, we still haven’t fully lived up to those words in the Declaration. But we’ve never walked away from them, and this July 4, I hope all of us can commit to one thing: that we never will. I don’t believe we’re as divided as we’re told we are. I’ve bet my whole life on the American people, and I’m not stopping now.

Happy 250th birthday, America. Our story isn’t finished. Let’s keep writing it together.

In my opinion, each of the messages hit the mark; the former presidents all called on us to recognize where we started, where we are, what it took to get here, and that we can't stop trying to achieve what the founders envisioned when they declared our independence.

What do you think? Did they get it right? Drop a comment.

Wondering on Wednesday 5/13/26

 

What's on my wondering mind tonight? Here's a sampling:

The Trump International Hotel and Tower planned for Australia's Gold Coast is a no-go, according to multiple sources. What happened to the ~$1.09B deal depends on who you ask. The Aussie developer is blaming the 'toxicity' of the Trump name, while folks who bear that name are saying the developer didn't meet the contract terms. 

Both things seem plausible, and I wonder how many other projects tentatively on the docket might not go forward? The FOTUS (yeah, I know, 'he's not involved in day-to-day operations of the company,' or so they say) continues to display progressively more petulant, aggressive, and narcissistic tendencies, and I suspect there's a point at which some folks will pull a Nike and just say no...

Speaking of the FOTUS and his tendencies, I have to wonder if anyone in his administration is supposed to be playing the role of the adult in the room? Someone really should be, given this recap of his social media activity in the hours before he was to leave for China. Some of his posts were just plain crazy, like one from a fake JFK Jr. account about Barack Obama bugging Trump Tower, apparently not realizing, or caring, that Kennedy died several years before Obama's rise to national prominence. Others? Obama made $120M off the Obamacare name; Sen. Mark Kelly must resign; he own team is not doing enough to punish his enemies, and more. 

Speaking of his China trip, among his entourage are a trillion dollars' worth of CEOs, a trio of Cabinet Secretaries (Rubio, Hegseth, and Bessent), Eric and Lara Trump, and Brett Ratner, the guy who directed the Melania movie, who was accused in 2017 by multiple women of sexual harassment. I don't know about you, but I can't help wondering what value Ratner will bring to the trip. Maybe it's just a chance for him to pitch a movie to China's first lady?

What else... Oh, how could I forget? The FOTUS, you'll remember, sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10B (that's two-thirds of the agency's total budget!) because it failed to protect his privacy when years of his tax returns were stolen, and juicy parts were published, like the fact that for several years, he paid no federal income tax. Last month, the judge in the case raised concerns about how 'adversarial' the parties are, given that the president pretty much controls the whole show. With briefs due on May 20th and a hearing scheduled for May 27th, there are reportedly discussions about settling the case before the judge's concerns are even addressed. Shocking, I know.

Among the options allegedly being tossed around? Dropping the audits against Trump, his sons, and his companies...the same audits that 'prevented' him from disclosing his taxes to the American people, as most major-party candidates have done for the past several decades. Now, if you're wondering what I'm wondering about on this one, it's this: would the FOTUS accept just the dropping of the audits, or would he demand a financial payment, too? If he demanded a payment, would he donate it to charity, as he's promised all along, or would he pocket it along with all the other money he's grifting from us? 

Drop a comment if there's something you're wondering about; there's always more than I can fit into a single post.

Breaking Fake News Update (v1)

Fake News broke on August 7, 2025!

This news came shortly after Comer subpoenaed Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales in his "investigation" of the Epstein files. 

We will continue to share fake news as it breaks. 

Wondering on Wednesday 1/17/24

 

Ready... set... wonder!

I'd guess that no one was surprised with the outcome of the Iowa Republican caucuses; Donald Trump won, garnering more than 50% of the vote. Ron DeSantis (2nd) and Nikki Haley (3rd) got fewer votes - combined - than Trump. I have to wonder, though, why media outlets were calling the vote for Trump barely half an hour after the caucuses started? Sure, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he would win, but come on - at least let people go through the process.

Another thing I'm wondering? How many people stayed home, and why did they? As of last November, Iowa had 718,000 registered Republicans, but only about 110,300 people voted. 

Was it the weather? Was it an enthusiasm gap for DeSantis and Haley voters? Did the media's constant Trump-gushing have an impact? We may never know, for sure, but I think we can agree that an early declaration of victory like what happened this week is not helpful.

One last thing before we leave presidential politics,  I find myself wondering if Trump's abuse of Nimarata Nikki Haley's full name, following his promotion of the lie that she's ineligible to be president, is indicative of his concerns that she has a chance against him? Remember, he took this same approach to the candidacies of former President Barack Hussein Obama and Sen. Rafael 'Ted' Cruz. Of course, there's always a chance that he's just a jerk and can't help himself, so maybe we shouldn't read anything into it.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, the state legislature continues to attack people and things they don't like. Among the latest proposed bills is one that would effectively end legal recognition of trans people.

The bill starts by defining "sex" in a way that excludes transgender people and incorporating this definition at the beginning of Florida's legal code - Section 1.01.  It demands that every law in Florida adhere to this definition, effectively eliminating all transgender legal representation in a single move. It then goes through many areas of code and creates additional policies that allow for the tracking of transgender people's assigned sex at birth and the enforcement of laws that exclude or criminalize them.

When I first heard about this last week, it was in the context of driver's licenses and a required gender affidavit - and I couldn't help wondering if trans people were really worse drivers than anyone else. Come to find out, one of the authors of the bill says it's to protect law enforcement. According to Rep. Dean Black of Jacksonville, 

We need law enforcement to know what they are dealing with. If you can go change your gender on your driver's license on a whim, that can actually endanger law enforcement.

Not sure why officers will be 'protected' by knowing the birth gender of a driver, especially in a state that now offers permitless concealed firearms carry, but maybe that's just me.

We'll close with an interesting bit of tourism promotion from the city of Lexington, KY, where the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is going where no CVB has gone before: outer space.

The agency said it worked with scientists and scholars to beam the message toward potentially habitable planets in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system 40 lightyears away.

The effort was led by Lexington native Robert Lodder, who is an expert in computer engineering, astrology, and Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

If you're wondering, the message, which was sent with FAA approval, opens with

The first thing you'll notice as you descend through Earth's atmosphere above Central Kentucky is the lush green countryside that surrounds Lexington's vibrant city center. That's our famous bluegrass.

It includes recommendations where ET and friends can "stay and eat and shop." 

Now, I think this is kind of cool - I mean, why not have some fun, right?  But I can't stop wondering what's going to happen the first time one of the visitors stops at a horse farm, for example, and thinks it's a restaurant? 

What's on your wondering mind these days?

In Case You Missed It (v105)

A little better week, post-wise. Here's your recap of what made it out last week. 

Your Sunday School was filled with talk about the shenanigans at Mar-a-Lago, and about student loan debt forgiveness. In the State of the Union classroom on CNN, Dana Bash talked with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about that, which was a major theme of her presidential campaign. Here's a bit of that. 

Bash wondered about fairness, and other kinds of debt that the government isn't helping with. Warren said she thinks "a lot about fairness," before reciting her own story of going to college when a semester cost $50, getting a part-time job and being able to pay for her education. That's not the case now, where "our public education system is no longer creating opportunities" for folks without financial means.

Instead, we're saying to these young people, you have got to get an education, but we are going to wrap the chains of debt around you. And, for many, you're going to be paying it for decades into the future, including getting Social Security checks garnished. That's not the America we want.

She didn't address the 'fairness' question, and Bash noted the package doesn't do anything about the cost of education. There are "a lot of problems in the whole system," she said, and this is one tool Biden had to help. She said the Dems "have put multiple plans on the table" to deal with the other issues, but the Rs won't get on board.

I didn't research her comment about the Rs not getting on board, but given the last two years, I don't have any immediate reason to doubt her on it. 

For your Extra Credit, I decided to spend time with the panel on Fox News Sunday, where there was some discussion on President Biden's comments on extreme MAGA folks - those comments were amplified, of course, in his address on Thursday. We'll get to that a bit more in a minute.  Here are what I'll call his trial balloon, and some of the discussion.

What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins - I'm going to say something, it's like semi-fascism. 

And later, he said, after calling Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan "a Republican you can deal with,"

 We disagree, but at least he's within the mainstream of the Republican Party. I respect conservative Republicans. I don't respect these MAGA Republicans. 

Juan Williams, a panel regular, was asked how Biden's comments compared to Hillary Clinton and her 'deplorable' comments? 

Williams started with a date: January 6, 2021. Clinton's widely (and often purposefully) misconstrued statement happened before that date, and Biden's was after it. 

After January 6th, you had the reality that there were a group of people, Trump supporters, who attacked the Congress of the United States to stop the certification of a legitimate, fair election. You had people in the crowd who wanted to threaten, if not hang, Vice President Pence. You had a situation where there were Trump officials who were pressuring state officials to manufacture votes and send phony electors to the Congress of the United States. I think if people behave that way, then they can be -- they can expect to be called semi-fascist, fascist, because it's antidemocratic action. You're acting against the constitution of these United States...

There was some disagreement from others on the panel, as you might imagine. 

I was wondering, on Wednesday - but I wasn't typing, so we skipped that regular feature last week. I did manage to get a couple of #tbt posts out on Thursday, both related to topics we're still talking about now. 

The first, from 2012, was a Point/Counterpoint recapping a Facebook conversation on voter ID laws. It was short and sweet - here's the crux of it; the red and blue are indicative of the political leanings of the participants.

It sounds like Obama can't get re-elected unless he has all these people that can't prove who they are to vote for him.

Ha ha - sure sounds like Romney can't get elected without these new laws keeping people from voting... 

Funny - sad funny, not haha funny - how little things have changed in a decade, isn't it?

The second #tbt was a Quick Take on FBI transparency from 2016. Here's a bit of that.

And now? There's some additional consternation, albeit perhaps more limited, as the FBI has decided to release information from their investigation.

(September 2, 2016) the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal email server she used during her tenure. We are also releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter. We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests...

Your TGIF was untraditional, which seemed fitting given the week's news. Given the discussions on Biden's brief remarks about MAGA extremists - NOT about all Republicans, he made clear - I shared a section of his address from Independence Hall. 

But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.

Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Now, I want to be very clear -- very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. 

I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.

It's important to see his full comments in context, because the Rs and the pundits don't want you to see that: they want the soundbites, and the arguments, and the battles. And that's consistent with how they regularly behave. 

I pointed all that out in a Sidebar, with previous examples to show that it's a pretty consistent practice in those circles.  The examples were from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former talked inelegantly about people "clinging to guns or religion" and the latter famously gave us the 'basket of deplorables." But unless you looked for it, you couldn't find the context of those remarks to understand the point they were trying to make. 

The media, which has an obligation to report the truth, and to separate news articles from opinions, didn't do a good job with either of these statements. Too often, they would report on the most inflammatory parts and, if you read the rest of the article, you could probably find a link to the entire quote. Of course, they know how few people read the entire article, right? Oh, hell - let's be honest - they know how many people read only the headline. 

The pundits, with no such obligation to the truth, blatantly ignored anything other than the most incendiary words - it was as if the rest of the quotes were not even spoken. I remember watching clips from the talk shows and the cable shows, and if anyone tried to mention the full breadth of the comments, they were shut down immediately: "Yeah, but he said..." "Yeah, but she said..."  "Yeah, but no one's going to remember that part, they're only going to remember the part that we're talking about..." "Yeah, but..."

The real villains here, in all three cases, IMO, are the Republicans who whole-heartedly embraced the soundbite, particularly Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. They owned it! They put themselves in that basket, they put their colleagues in that basket, they put their donors in that basket, they put their constituents in that basket, and they put everyone who voted for any Republican in that basket. 

And just like back then, the Rs are going overboard again, broadly painting themselves with an industrial sprayer, when the comments were wielded with six-inch-brush. 

And so it goes, as Linda Ellerbee used to say.

Have a good week.

Sidebar TGIF 9/2/22: Barack and Hillary Were Right, Too

President Biden's comments in Philly got me thinking back to when two other prominent Democrats got themselves into hot water talking about Republicans.

Here's what Barack Obama said that got him into hot water with the media and the Republicans, who purposefully ignored the most important part of his point: that people who are either ignored by politicians, or who are repeatedly given promises that are not kept, and to at least some degree, were never intended to be kept, are rightfully and understandably angry and frustrated with politicians. 

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And, here's is what Hillary Clinton said that got her into hot water with the medial and the Republicans, who gleefully ignored the most important part of her point: not all of Trump's supporters are worthy of disdain, and that only a Trump supporter can put themselves in a basket.  

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Both statements are inelegant, at best, but they are not the evil, hateful statements they were cracked up to be by the media, the punditry, or the Republicans. 

The media, which has an obligation to report the truth, and to separate news articles from opinions, didn't do a good job with either of these statements. Too often, they would report on the most inflammatory parts and, if you read the rest of the article, you could probably find a link to the entire quote. Of course, they know how few people read the entire article, right? Oh, hell - let's be honest - they know how many people read only the headline. 

The pundits, with no such obligation to the truth, blatantly ignored anything other than the most incendiary words - it was as if the rest of the quotes were not even spoken. I remember watching clips from the talk shows and the cable shows, and if anyone tried to mention the full breadth of the comments, they were shut down immediately: "Yeah, but he said..." "Yeah, but she said..."  "Yeah, but no one's going to remember that part, they're only going to remember the part that we're talking about..." "Yeah, but..."

The real villains here, in all three cases, IMO, are the Republicans who whole-heartedly embraced the soundbite, particularly Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. They owned it! They put themselves in that basket, they put their colleagues in that basket, they put their donors in that basket, they put their constituents in that basket, and they put everyone who voted for any Republican in that basket.  

It was almost as if they didn't even know there was a whole nother basket of Republicans who were not "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it." And if they knew those people existed, they sure didn't care about them when they accepted the title of "deplorable" or, in the case of Obama's comment, when they accepted the title of "gun-clinger," "religion-clinger," "antipathist," "anti-immigrant," or "anti-trade."

I remember talking with Republican friends who said Clinton called them a deplorable, and when I explained only they could choose the deplorables basket, they were confused. And silent.

And the Republicans who were not the people Obama and Clinton were talking about? That so many of them stayed quiet while their party leaders and elected representatives called them names is something I still don't understand. 

And the same thing is happening with Biden's comments, which were talked about as if he had smeared every Republican in the country, when he very carefully said he was talking about only a specific subset of the GOP: Trump's MAGA Republicans - the ones I call RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. 

RINO, of course, is the name he gives to Republicans who disagree with him, or who don't vote with him, or who don't beg for his endorsement... you get the drift. If you don't put him first, you're not MAGA, you're a RINO. And, if you're with him, you're an American; if you're not with him, you're definitely not one. Don't believe me? Check out a recent survey question from Trumpworld.

No one - no one - in the past seven years has said worse things about Republicans generally, and about specific Republicans, than Donald Trump. No one - no one - in the past seven years has done more damage to the reputation of the Rs than Donald Trump and his supporters.

Don't blame Barack Obama. 

Don't blame Hillary Clinton. 
Don't blame Joe Biden. 

The Republicans who are spitting mad about Joe Biden calling out Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans, and MAGA extremists today have no one to blame but themselves. 

And no one said it better than Trump-defending Sen. Lindsey Graham: 

You did. You did. And you do.

Poll Watch: A Lack of Seriousness

We're in the middle of an "all-Afghanistan, all the time" news cycle, as you're aware, and that means everyone's tripping over themselves trying to get the most provocative story that can be found. 

As is always the case when we're in this type of frenzy, Twitter is a fun place to hang out for a few minutes here and there. And it was in one of those few-minutes-here-and-there sessions that I stumbled on this survey. The tweet that caught my eye said "tell me again how we're a serious country" - and I simply had to read the linked article, which documented the responses to an IPSOS Snap Poll on Afghanistan.

First, the small print: online, English-language interviews with 1,000 adults from all 50 of the United States were done on August 16th. The survey included 247 Republicans, 443 Democrats, and 310 Independents, and has a 3.5% credibility interval at a 95% confidence level. Additional sampling info is in the link. 

I've seen surveys that illustrated a lack of clarity, but one that led to the questioning of our seriousness as a nation was new to me. Let's see if we can figure out why the poster felt that way.

Overall, 71% of respondents expressed familiarity with our involvement in Afghanistan over the last 20 years and with the US plans to withdraw all its forces from Afghanistan; 68% are familiar with the rapid success of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Independents are less familiar (or more honest?) with 64%, 64%, and 58% respectively, while the Republicans (R) and Democrats (D) were about 75% on each topic.

With more specific questions, answers start to take an interesting, if somewhat confusing, turn. For example:

• Only 50% overall (54% R, 53% D, 45% I) support sending combat troops back in to fight the Taliban - but 68% overall (71% R, 72% D, 62% I) support troops fighting the Taliban to allow time to evacuate Afghans. Which leads one to wonder, if we don't send the troops in, how will they fight the Taliban?

Meanwhile, there's a lot of support for the US to complete our troop withdrawal on schedule, currently meaning by August 31st. Overall, 61% of respondents support this; Republicans (48%) less than either the Independents (60%) or the Dems (72%).

The next questions asked for the level of agreement or disagreement with a series of statements. 

• While 61% want us to complete our exit on time, 51% agree it would have been worth it for the US to leave troops in Afghanistan for another year. Disagreement with this statement is consistent, at 32% overall and similar percentages by political affiliation. 

• We don't want our troops fighting the Taliban, but we also don't seem to mind America sending in additional troops to secure key facilities (airports, embassies, bases) until the US withdrawal is complete. Everyone agrees with this - 75% overall, 81% R, 75%D and 70% I, even though doing so would set us up for fighting the Taliban.

• The war in Afghanistan was going to end badly, no matter when the US left, also brought broad agreement, at 68%. By affiliation, Independents (40% agree, 33% disagree) were the outlier; the Rs (64%/25%) and Ds (78%/14%) were more in the mainstream.

• The rapid collapse of US-trained Afghan forces, and the government, is evidence why the US should get out of the conflict saw 63% of respondents in agreement. Dems agreed more (73%), with Republicans (56%agree/30% disagree) and Independents (58%/20%) less agreeable.

The final question, Have the following generally done a good or bad job in relation to Afghanistan, is the one that most accurately portrays our lack of seriousness as a country, in my opinion. 

TG=Total Good TB= Total Bad	All		R		D		I
	TG	TB	TG	TB	TG	TB	TG	TB
Bush Administration	47%	39%	55%	37%	51%	38%	37%	42%
Obama Administration	51%	38%	31%	63%	77%	15%	42%	39%
Trump Administration	51%	36%	83%	10%	36%	55%	39%	40%
Biden Administration	44%	42%	21%	74%	75%	12%	32%	46%
American news media	42%	44%	28%	65%	65%	22%	32%	38%
US military	77%	14%	85%	11%	78%	15%	69%	15%

It seems the Dubya administration was the last one where abject partisanship wasn't in play. Then we had the black president, the TV host president, and now we have the old guy, who's only been in office for seven months, and the only thing that matters seems to be party affiliation, absent that weird bit of balance from the Dems on Trump's handling of this mess.

• 63% of Republicans say that the administration that got Osama bin Laden did a totally bad job? Seriously? That's why we went there, remember?

• 77% of Democrats say that building troop levels up to 100K, and planning to have all our troops out by the end of 2014, which of course didn't happen, was totally good?

• 83% of Republicans think that talks with the Taliban, including an obscene but discarded plan to bring Taliban leaders to the US, to Camp David, on 9/11, for heaven's sake, or forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, or setting a troop withdrawal date that's in someone else's administration, is totally good?

• 65% of Democrats think the media has done a totally good job, for 20 years, and 65% of Republicans think the opposite?

"Tell me again how we're a serious country," indeed. It's long past time we got our heads out of our partisan you-know-whats, don't you think?