Every time I log on to the Internet I'm greeted by this nicely dressed gentleman who thinks he knows more than I do about how to take a dump.
Some people cope better with annoyances than I do. Here is an interaction between Sen. Doug Jones, Democrat from Alabama [sic], and a "tracker"—one of those guys the other side sends out to stalk you in the expectation that you will say or do something dumb that can then be used against you.
Not sure what I love most about this. One candidate would be the contrast between the tracker, gasping for air after running from "the back door" to intercept his quarry, and Jones, so cool that his ice cream sandwich might not melt in his mouth. Then there is the contrast between the tracker's gotcha question—"Why do you know better than Alabamians?"—and the information, which he cheerfully offers without consciousness of irony, that he works for some nutcake organization with headquarters a thousand miles from Alabama ("Colorado Rising Action"). I believe the video was originally posted at Yellowhammer News, a right-wing news site. I guess they think the "interview" reflects poorly on Jones? When the senator, settling into his car seat, politely dismisses "Derrick" (though after pronouncing his question "dumb"), I hear the voice of George Burns telling Gracie to say goodnight.
Jones has a few more months to serve in the Senate, so enjoy him while you can. He won the Special Election for the vacant seat created when Trump tapped Jeff Sessions to be his first attorney general. How did Jones win in Alabama? Well, African-American church ladies vote in every election, no matter what, and his Republican opponent, Judge Roy Moore, had a documented record of trolling for underaged girls at the shopping mall. Result: Jones, the Democrat, wins by 1.7 percent of the vote. Now, with Trump on the ballot, he's up for re-election, and his Republican opponent is merely a corrupt and ignorant former football coach. In other words, Jones is toast. I know it's cool to be cynical about politicians, but, to the degree that an outsider can tell, Jones appears to be a sane, accomplished, decent person. As a US Attorney, he successfully prosecuted the Klansmen who, years before, had bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four young African-American girls. In the Senate, there was always speculation, when a high-profile vote was pending, that Jones might side with the Republicans in order to boost his chances for re-election in Alabama, but he voted for conviction in Trump's impeachment trial, against confirming Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and against repealing Obamacare. He's known as a strong defender of LGBT rights, which in Alabama is roughly as popular as . . . trolling for underaged girls at the mall.
Probably it's sort of quaint to highlight Jones's meeting with a tracker on the day that we all got to see our president's full interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios. Though the transcript doesn't do justice to Trump's bizarre-o performance , consider this excerpt:
Trump: And then there are those that say, "you can test too much"; you know that, right?
Swan: Who says that?
Trump: Just read the manuals. Read the books.
Swan: What manuals? What books?
Trump: The manuals.
Swan: What manuals?
Trump: The book.
Swan: What book?
Trump: What testing does . . .
Swan: Wait a minute.
Trump: What testing does . . .
At another point, Trump is rifling through papers with graphs that, he says, show what a great job he's doing on the coronavirus beat. But, unable to explain what the graphs mean, he impatiently shoves the papers toward Swan, as if to convey, "You're smart, you figure out what I'm trying to say." Swan squints at them for a few seconds and then does understand: the graphs show American deaths as a share of all cases, together with how this compares to the same metric in other countries, whereas he'd been pressing Trump on deaths as a percentage of total population. He explains the difference to Trump, who says: "You can't do that." Swan replies, "Why can't I do that?" Trump, after stammering around, says, "You have to go by the cases! You have to go by the cases!" It's one part Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and five parts This Is Spinal Tap.
Then this morning, at some white-bread White House event, Trump was trying to read from a prepared text about the wonders of our national parks when he came to the phrase "Yosemite's towering sequoias" and, after pausing in evident confusion, pronounced it as if he were directing the attention of some Jewish sightseers to a grove of tall trees: "Yo, Semites! Towering sequoias!" Video. It's hilarious that the cultists can't wait for him to wipe the floor with Biden in a debate.
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