CSotD: The Weasel Report
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Today's Barney & Clyde really smacked me upside the head.
I first ran into James Wilkinson when I was researching a story about the War of 1812 and one of the primary resources was his reports on the campaigns along the St. Lawrence.
His map of Sacket's Harbor came in very handy but his observations and analysis were at such odds with everything else I was finding that I finally looked him up.
Wilkinson is one of those under-a-rock characters who differs from Benedict Arnold in that, with Arnold, you can paint a sympathetic picture of a flawed, complicated man in a very complicated time. If only he hadn't married a Tory, if only he hadn't been stationed in Philadelphia, if only he had been the type to brush off the squabbling and backstabbing that abounded …
There are no "if only's" for Wilkinson, who seems to have been a first-class weasel and jerk from the get-go.
Now, as it happens, I'm wrapping up a similar story about Saratoga and guess who has emerged as a trusted aide to General Gates?
What it means is that each piece of information I'm getting with the name "Wilkinson" attached is being run through the bullshit detector twice.
And I tend to agree with TR, whom I also wrote about though not in a context where his opinion of Wilkinson was more than a sideline.
Easiest Segue Ever
I've seen a couple of cartoons using this take on this topic, but not only was Ed Hall first in my feed, but his piece is the simplest and most label-free, and thus the most eloquent and effective.
Well, effective for those who want to be effected, most of whom are probably already among the faithful.
It's hard to tell the paid trolls from the True Believers, but suggesting on social media that ignoring the CIA is bad policy seems to provoke a truly more-unhinged-than-usual response.
My faith in humanity insists that nobody would say such lunatic things in public without being paid to do so, but I've often showed too much faith in humanity.
Nate Beeler's cartoon offers more of a challenge, in light not only of Putin's potential for sparking a shooting war in Eastern Europe but because his aggression in Ukraine and the Baltics has been, at least in part, provoked by the Bush/Cheney administration's eagerness to extend NATO to Russia's doorstep.
It was an unnecessarily provocative gesture that not only challenged the Russian government's sense of border security but delivered a public insult to the nation as a whole. There were other ways to indicate our support for those countries that might have avoided provoking the Russian Bear and simultaneously strengthening national resolve for policies they might otherwise have doubted.
Having gone through a decade or so of seeing how people who know what the hell they're doing handle this situation, we'll now find out how well it works if you approach it the other way.
And Kevin Siers simply made me laugh.
This is gallows humor, but it's funny gallows humor, and we could use some of that.
In fact, what I'm thinking is that, even with the GOP control of Congress, control over the White House is potentially up for grabs, and that, while screaming in the streets may strengthen an urge to support the President, a constant flow of mockery plus people respectfully but firmly approaching their own representatives and Senators could provide at least a sea-anchor to slow things down, if not a way to stop them entirely.
Aside from the trolls — amateur or not — on Facebook, I'm also seeing people with outlandish, absurd ideas that include petitioning for a new election or asking Congress to pass a law ending the Electoral College, which indicates, if nothing else, that the truly foolish, uninformed, uneducated boobs were not all in Trump's little basket.
But I do think, and hope, that a constant, reasoned pressure against Amateur Hour in the White House, plus a few slapdowns from the Supreme Court no matter who he finds to fill Scalia's seat, will set up the 2018 mid-term elections in a way that even GOP gerrymanders won't fully blunt.
Joel Pett suggests that the GOP is already prepared to stand up for what's right, as long as they can do it in a hole deep enough that you can't actually see or identify them.
James Wilkinson would fit right in.
Meanwhile, back in the dating pool
I also got a laff out of today's Retail because, while this pair know they both work for minimum wage in a heartless corporate bureaucracy, it reminded me of a fairly brief period when I checked things out at Match.com.
Specifically, it reminded me of how many profiles there were of women who seemed quite frank about their careers in clerical work and their incomes of under $25,000, but, when answering their hobbies, listed "travel" and said that their favorite places to travel were the Greek Islands.
There are times when having no money can save you some heartache, because I knew from the get-go that I wasn't their type.
And, no, I didn't examine the men's profiles. I'm sure there were plenty of blatant warnings in their profiles, too, given that Match.com war stories are nearly always more amusing than Match.com dates.
I had a couple of Match.com dinners, but only one second date and that was a short "I don't think this is going anywhere" cuppa coffee.
My most successful outcome was not a date at all. After some emails back and forth, I suggested that she wasn't over her marriage and should work that out before she tried dating.
About a year and a half later, I was speaking at teacher's conference in the Finger Lakes when a woman approached me, identified herself as that person, thanked me and reported that she and her husband were back together.
So, see? There is romance at Match.com!
Now here's your moment of zen:
(Different Ray Charles. But, no, go ahead and click on it.)
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