CSotD: The Old Men on the Porch
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As with the best of political humor, Margulies gets a laugh alongside a sigh, but my first reaction was “Who cares what Chris Christie thinks?”
He had his shot and he blew it. One of my father’s gripes about the steel industry was that it took in his generation when they came back from the war, but then pulled up the ladder and never developed younger middle-management. All of a sudden, they were a bunch of old guys nearing retirement with nobody poised to take their places. Christie is 63, which isn’t 80 but isn’t 40, either.
He was interviewed on ABC’s This Week, however, and I suppose that’s not much of an answer to the question of who cares what Chris Christie thinks because Sunday morning talk shows are like the old guys sitting around on the porch of the general store. And I don’t disagree that Trump’s greed makes him much like a Russian oligarch, but what are Christie and those other old guys on the porch gonna do about it?
I laughed, however, because Trump has always had a special place in his heart for Putin, which we’ve known ever since 2017 when he revealed Israeli intelligence to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, then sided with Russia against his own FBI a year later.
Granted, I have a somewhat dark sense of humor.
This week he referred to the Islamic Republic of Japan and made up some cockamamie story about how he sent his new beautiful gift from Qatar to inspire American troops in Britain and flew home, instead, in the old Air Force One.
Meanwhile, security folks were saying it was because his new beautiful gift from Qatar, unlike Air Force One, doesn’t have properly secure communication systems and is also vulnerable to missiles. Which is a bummer, but all the taxpayer checks for fancying up the new plane have been cashed and so never mind.
At least it isn’t covered in algae.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Dear Leader has been reacting to a humiliating losing streak. He screwed up the reflecting pond, nobody came to his stupid Great American State Fair and the entire world laughed at him for his interference with the red card at the World Cup, which didn’t even save the US team from getting their butts kicked.
So he went back to war with Iran and announced that he still wants Greenland. When the audience starts to grumble, give’em a medley of your greatest hits.
We all know he’s got a soft spot in his heart for Putin, but, as Blitt suggests, his bestie isn’t doing so well at the moment, either, and is reportedly hunkered down both out of precaution on account of Ukrainian drones …
… and also because those drone attacks are making him seem less powerful to his people. He’s still trying to convince them that all is well, but it’s not easy when they can see and smell the smoke from burning refineries.
When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and glasnost made conversations possible, there was a substantial period of public regret over the lives lost and veterans permanently damaged in that failed adventure. Putin has closed things back up, but the massive losses of lives now are as plainly visible as that black smoke.
It’s particularly hard to cover up the fuel shortages that have forced Putin to divert gasoline from civilian needs to keep the military supplied. All the happy talk in the world won’t make people think they’re driving their cars when they’re walking places.
And he doesn’t have Trump’s option of having the Central Government open up gas stations to sell gas at artificially low prices, despite the Strategic Petroleum Reserve being drawn down to uncomfortable lows. It’s a move that carries more than a hint of hypocrisy. As Adam Kinzinger said (in a round-up of disasters worth reading)
So the White House is branding gas stations and setting the price. But when the mayor of New York proposed a handful of city-run grocery stores, Republicans spent months screaming that it was communism. That New York City was turning into Venezuela. The Communists were taking over Manhattan. But the federal government slapping its logo on gas pumps and dictating what fuel costs? That’s “Freedom.”
This isn’t exactly “Well, if I’ve lost Cronkite I’ve lost Middle America,” but having conservatives like Bok start to wise up sure ain’t good news.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Accounts vary on the success of the Ukrainian drones, but it’s generally agreed that they are punishing the Russians both in Russia itself and on the battlefields of Ukraine. This report from Meduza is relatively restrained in its claims, but Anne Applebaum offers a close-up look at how drone warfare is not only pushing Russian troops to the brink but changing the face of warfare permanently.
One point being made is that, whether you liken them to bees or flies, it’s not a case of one drone zooping in to try to make a hit, but entire flocks of them attacking ground troops from distant launch sites in numbers that make it inevitable that some will deliver their stings.
Now Trump has announced that he will — pending agreement from the private companies with the rights — allow Ukraine to begin making Patriot missiles to protect Kyiv from Russian ballistic missile attacks. Granted, this would depend on him maintaining focus on the promise and assuming he knows that the guy he kept calling “Putin” was really Zelenskyy, but it’s something.
Not to worry: Karoline Leavitt is back from maternity leave and assured the press corps that “The President commanded every room, gave our allies some much-needed tough love, and left the summit with a stronger NATO and more united free world.”
He’s still got plenty of support from senior legislators like Mitch McConnell, who supported him throughout his impeachments and is standing by to back up his policies now.
And Now For Something Completely Different
In lieu of music, here’s an interview with First Dog on the Moon, and if you can’t puzzle through their Aussie accents, here’s a six-year-old print interview from which I swiped the above illustration.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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