CSotD: The Measure of the Man
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To start with, nobody takes an MRI as part of a routine physical. I have no idea how an MRI could be “perfect,” since every body is different and at least has its own peculiarities if not its own flaws, but they don’t just give you one for the heck of it, any more than a healthy person has more than one annual physical in the same year.
As the man said, “There’s something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear.”
As I’ve said before, it’s not good strategy to make reporters curious, and claiming you had a routine MRI that turned out “perfect” does just that.
And the cognition tests he boasts of are not to measure intelligence but to detect impending dementia. It’s good that he passed, but it’s not so good that he claims to have ended the war between Cambodia and Armenia.
All that flooding of the zone seems to have paid off and reporters may be too overloaded to keep fact-checking and trying to analyze things.
The “fine people” line was taken out of context, but part of the purpose of flooding the zone is the destruction of context, and a constant flow of boasting, misstatements and deliberate lies results in the chaos it was intended to create.
Keef gets past the individual issues and addresses the sum total, a take I’m beginning to also hear from a lot of relatively conservative commentators. They’re saying that whether Trump wants to run for a third term is less of a concern than whether he can keep it together through this one.
I’m also hearing grumbling that contrasts the derision and suspicion aimed at Biden in the final stages of his presidency. He’d certainly lost his fast ball and the press was right to question his fitness. but it’s only fair and sensible to apply the same standards and expectations to the current president.
As it is, there’s almost no challenge anymore in the question frequently posed by Brendan Nyhan, “What would you say if you saw it in another country?”
Imagine if some other leader started blowing up boats in international waters? What if some other country were dragging children out of their beds at night? What if some other leader pardoned a bit-coin criminal who had helped his family earn millions?
What would you say if you saw it in another country?
If you were to list the nations in which children are allowed to starve while their leader stages self-congratulatory military parades, lies about the size of his nuclear arsenal and announces plans to blow up a few atomic bombs to see if they work, the question is whether you’d name them both.
It’s not a tough question. The nickname “Dear Leader” wasn’t chosen at random.
Letting children go hungry while you build gaudy monuments to yourself is bad mojo, and it’s not helpful to explain that you’re getting the money for your vanity projects from oligarchs with business before the government.
If some billionaire wants to drop a bribe, why not make a major donation to the nation’s food banks?
There is a reserve fund that could be tapped to feed the poor, though Dear Leader has a team of spinmasters explaining that it’s illegal to tap emergency funds if we don’t have money left for SNAP.
This is kind of like saying we can’t use the lifeboats because the ship is sinking, and, when funding is found for paying certain people and for building monuments, the captain doesn’t have to shout “Women and children last!” to make his priorities clear.
Ohman has an excellent metaphor: The White House is purposefully choosing not to offer help.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I like dark humor, and part of that approach can certainly include ridicule. Here are three cartoons that use the principle differently.
Bramhall taps into the issue of unpaid work and how cutting off funds has wider implications beyond rent and groceries.
Air traffic controllers are not only a good example of people who can’t possibly take their children to work, but the public is experiencing flight delays and hearing safety concerns. His scenario further suggests the chain reaction in the community that goes beyond the specific people being required to work without pay.
Necessary’s setting is similarly absurd but well-anchored, because, while children won’t likely be trick-or-treating for baked beans and milk, our food banks are already stressed. I got an email yesterday from our local relief group, telling where to find food and asking for donations. I hope the food bins at grocery stores will see an increase from those who still have incomes and can help.
I’m less sure about Rall’s approach, because while it’s 100% valid to question those issues raised, it seems more a condemnation than an effort to change minds.
Bear in mind that what changed Ebenezer Scrooge was not the disapproval of the people from the local charity or even Marley’s terrifying lecture, but, rather, the reminders of his own younger values and a look inside the home of Bob Cratchit.
It was only after the first two ghosts had softened Scrooge’s heart that he was open to the strict, more frightening predictions of the third.
It seems unlikely that even the devastation Melissa is wreaking across the Caribbean will soften Trump’s heart, awaken him to the needs of others or render him less resistant to the well-accepted science of climate change.
After all, he’s denied disaster relief to blue states because he sees them as enemies. He openly condemns wokeness and defies moral principles. The deaths of Jamaicans and Cubans are hardly likely to touch a heart that cheerfully tossed paper towels to his own citizens following a devasting hurricane in Puerto Rico.
Kindness and empathy aside, Rowe focuses on the issue of a man who calls himself a genius but is entering crucial talks with someone who not only understands how tariffs work but genuinely has a firm grasp of realpolitik.
So far, results of the meeting depend on who you hear them from, and therefore whose word you trust.
It’s a test of your own cognition.
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