Cockburn

Was there an ayahuasca retreat for normie Democratic pundits last weekend that Cockburn didn’t get an invitation to? He asks because recent days have seen the proliferation of hot takes best explained by the ingestion of psychedelics. In particular, Cockburn is confused by a series of kooky suggestions as to who might make good Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates next time around. In the Wall Street Journal, Douglas E. Schoen and Andrew Stein say that Joe and Kamala have become too unpopular to run again and that it might be time for a “change” candidate: a tough broad who goes by the name of Hillary Clinton. Yes, that’s right: Hillary could be back.

Ted Cruz’s thirteen-year-old daughter Caroline found herself in the sinister gaze of a blog called LGBTQNation this week. Cockburn is very disappointed in its writer Bil Browning, clearly another graduate of the Jeffrey Epstein School of Journalism: a well-funded progressive institution whose students consider it perfectly acceptable to treat teenagers as if they’re adults. The reason for Browning’s story is to further spread the deeply newsworthy information that Cruz’s daughter “has reportedly come out as bisexual on social media” — and has condemned the Texas senator’s “far-right political views.” A teenager rebelling against her parents? Stop the presses!

Cockburn realized this January 6 commemoration stuff was serious when he saw that even Lin-Manuel Miranda found time in his schedule to put in an appearance at the Capitol today. Actually, who knows if he was free? Miranda, the creator of Hamilton and high priest of Obama-era cringe, delivered a pre-recorded message to the American people and performed, with other cast members from the show that made him famous, the song “Dear Theodosia.” You might be wondering whether this struck the right tone for what was Cockburn was told was going to be a somber commemoration of one of the darkest days in American history.

Cockburn is eagerly anticipating a number of clashes in the 2022 midterm elections in under a year's time. Chief among them is the battle Congresswoman Liz Cheney faces with Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman to hold onto Wyoming's sole seat in the House of Representatives. So how is the incumbent presenting herself to her voters? Cheney has sought to bolster her reputation as "the Last Honest Republican in Washington," by periodically challenging former president Donald Trump in TV appearances with NBC, CBS and Fox News's friendlier faces — Bret Baier and freshly departed Sunday host Chris Wallace. But most significantly, she has raised her national profile through her role as vice chair of the January 6 committee, upon which she and Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans.

They say a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. Clearly that’s another old adage Joe Biden no longer remembers, as this week his White House announced the unsanctimonious jettisoning of Major, the president’s German shepherd, in favor of Commander, a younger, friendlier pup. “Welcome to the White House, Commander,” a tweet from the official POTUS account read. The president’s social media flacks then posted a video of the new First Dog playing with Biden. In the clip, Commander sits in order to earn a treat from the president: clearly an upgrade in the behavioral stakes. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1473057147017744390 Major, you may recall, was a rescue taken in by the Biden family in November 2018.

Cockburn has never been quite sure what to make of Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Previous GOP skippers have been easy for this Washingtonian workhorse to understand: John Boehner was an old-school cigs-and-digs backroomer, who frequently used to stop by Cockburn's table at Shelly's and rant about Ted Cruz apropos of nothing. Paul Ryan was a libertarian wonk in both the best and worst senses of the term. But McCarthy? Other than accidentally blurting out the Republicans' entire anti-Hillary Benghazi strategy on a cable news bender several years back, he's never really stood out. Thankfully, though, McCarthy isn't totally devoid of Washington intrigue. Six years ago, rumors surfaced that he'd had an affair with fellow Republican rep Renee Ellmers of North Carolina.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, Cockburn is deeply skeptical of progress. Barely a day goes by without the evidence contradicting the idea that we are emerging from the bad old days into a bright, enlightened future. Quite the opposite: all around him, Cockburn finds evidence that our forebears had it figured out in ways we have somehow forgotten. The latest reminder that everything is getting worse is the almighty row between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace. The two first-term Republican congresswomen have spent days insulting one another on Twitter and in interviews with unusual ferocity even by the standards of Washington in 2021.

Cockburn always thought Thanksgiving was the holiday designated for sharing madcap political views that one day you'll regret saying aloud. So kudos to Fox Nation's Lara Logan for extending the tradition into advent, by offering a comparison between Anthony Fauci and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele on Monday's edition of Fox News Primetime. Logan, a former war correspondent, was invited on to discuss the Omicron variant. Presumably the logic behind the booking was that the variant emerged from her home country, South Africa. Here's the expertise she chose to provide: On Dr. Fauci, this is what people say to me. He doesn't represent science to them, he represents Josef Mengele. Dr. Josef-the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews in the second world war and in the concentration camps.

Christmas may not come from a store, but Cockburn's poor heart still shrunk three sizes after he saw First Lady Jill Biden's attempt at Christmas decorations on Monday. The good doctor unveiled her first annual White House holiday décor with the theme "Gifts from the Heart", an ode to "small acts of kindness" that was rather small-minded indeed. Cockburn's distaste for Dr. Jill's decorations is only partially motivated by the fact that he was not invited to the press preview as in past years; he is sure that after four years of First Lady Melania Trump's ethereal and Vogue-esque displays, independent observers will agree that the new administration didn't live up to the hype.

Much of Tucker Carlson’s exclusive interview with Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager found not guilty in a high-profile homicide trial last week, went as Cockburn expected. Tucker largely let Rittenhouse tell his side of the story, running through the events of the bloody night last summer when Rittenhouse shot and killed two men and wounded a third. Tucker’s questions on the political dimensions of the case, something about which Rittenhouse has said very little until now, prompted the most interesting responses. “This case has nothing to do with race, it never had anything to do with race,” said Rittenhouse. “It had to do with the right to self-defense.” Rittenhouse also said: “I support the BLM movement. I support peacefully demonstrating.

Are you a sexist and a racist? For her supporters, that’s the only possible explanation for why Vice President Kamala Harris is so unpopular. A pair of dovetailing pieces this weekend in Politico and CNN extensively document how hard done by the Veep feels by the Biden administration. CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jasmine Wright write that Harris allies “fume that she's not being adequately prepared or positioned, and instead is being sidelined” and that Harris herself “has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she's able to do politically.” Politico says that Harris’s “allies outside of the administration have argued she’s been set up for failure by the portfolio she’s been handed.

Welcome to the grubby world of politics, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin. A breathless report on the Democrat blog Blue Virginia on Friday claimed to have uncovered yet another racism scandal involving a Virginia politician, asserting that the new Republican governor hadn’t been “vetted.” But just how damning is what’s been unearthed? “A recently-obtained copy of Glenn Youngkin’s prep school yearbook (Norfolk Academy, 1985) shows that his senior prom, entitled ‘An Oriental Occasion,’ featured white students offensively dressed in ‘rice hats,’ sandals and geisha robes serving their tuxedoed, all-white peers. Youngkin is pictured right next to these racist stereotypes.

Cockburn has always been suspicious of politicians who don't drink. The track record there isn't very good: Hitler, Biden, Trump, Che Guevara, the grand old Duke of York Prince Andrew. Contrast that to history's legions of statesmanlike squifflers, from Winston Churchill to George Washington to Vaclav Havel. Hence why Cockburn is struggling to understand why Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel is under fire for getting a bit tibbly. Nessel, a Democrat, apologized on her Facebook page Wednesday for having had too much to drink at a tailgate party before a college football game. She admitted that she'd been imbibing on an empty stomach, and said she'd later felt sick and had to leave the stadium so as to, as she put it, "prevent me from vomiting on any of my constituents.