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Redundant Redux
2.29.16

You know how cool it would be to create an iconic character that becomes a standard reference in our culture? I'm talking about "the boy who cried wolf," or a character in literature that people always refer to. "He's tilting at windmills." You know. "He's the Tonto to your Lone Ranger." That sort of deal. I know you have a much more sophisticated one you're thinking of. Like Faust or Edward Rochester or something.

My contribution was going to be the idiot character that people attribute great wisdom to. I was going to use a drifter who came across a guy's hat in the desert. Turns out the hat belonged to a sheriff with a reputation for cleaning up towns, and the people in the town think it's him. Because they have preconceived notions everything he does becomes brilliant and brave. Even when it's not.

Like Obama. "Look at him! Right there. He did nothing at all! He's playing us!" I flap my gums about this all the time, like in this post on 1.27.16 called "It's Brilliant!"

I know, I think I stole the western town idea, but I can't remember the movie—which is kind of the point of this post.

I'm too late (of course). That character exists. He's called Chauncey Gardiner.

Chauncey is a simple gardener, but they think he's a brilliant philosopher and they do mental gymnastics to give deep meaning to the simple things he says. Just read the link already.

I stumbled across that reference in this article that goes over some bizarre things that Trump does that really differentiates him from real Republicans.

Then, since I don't want to type in all the code to start a new post, as long as we're talking about Trump, read this analysis about Trump's wealth speculating that he'd have more money if he'd done nothing. The point is disputed, but the analysis is that for all his "Look how smart I am because I've made so much money!" if he'd taken his inheritance and just put it in mutual funds he'd have more wealth now than he does after all his real estate speculation and stuff.

You remember the deal where conventional wisdom simplifies why politicians lost. The Dukakis tank picture. The I have a Scream speech. Read my lips, no new taxes. All of that.

I'm not buying it; obviously it's much more complex than that, but the bumper sticker explanation for Mitt Romney would be his "Forty-seven percent" comments.

The thing is, Obama did the exact same thing. He had his "Clinging to guns and religion" comments. He had a lot of them. Didn't hurt him.

Some time when you have a lot of time list all the ones Trump has done. Wow. His 'two Corinthians' was as bad as some of the stupid things they've said took out some guys, but nobody has ever survived the worst ones he's done. Especially not when he comes up with a new one every day.

Okay, nothing new here, but I didn't want you to feel ripped off when you came here and only found a couple of paragraphs.

I've told you about this trick. You know, the one where you phrase things in a way that sounds like one thing, but if you're found out you can point to the wording and say "I never said that! You misunderstood!"

But until then you're happy to let people believe what you meant for them to hear.

And I think I might have mentioned that it was a favorite tactic of the Clintons.

Voici this example of Hillary Clinton implementing this play:

(Jane) PAULEY: Tuesday morning, Senator Hillary Clinton's first thought when the second plane hit was terrorists. Her next thought was Chelsea, who was not only in New York, but staying downtown.

CLINTON: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.

PAULEY: She was close enough to hear the rumble.

CLINTON: She did hear it.

Okay, what did this sound like to you? It sounded like Hillary said Chelsea had gone on what she thought would be a great jog. She went to get a cup of coffee, and that's when the plane hit. Didn't it?

It sounds like she said that Chelsea went jogging and ducked into a coffee shop right when the plane hit.

Only that's not what happened.

Chelsea herself said she wasn't downtown when it happened. Then Dick Morris (among others) pointed that out. Clinton's story didn't square with the truth, and it sounded a lot like a fabrication, like her landing under sniper fire in Bosnia. Here's the truth. Here's what Clinton said. Two different things.

Then Media Matters (God forgive me for soiling this literary sanctuary with the mention of that name) said "What?! No! Hillary Clinton never said Chelsea was jogging downtown when the planes hit!"

Uh . . . she didn't?

"No!" MM said (I can't say the M-words again. I can't) "You're lying when you say Hillary's lying! She never said that! She said . . . well, that Chelsea was going to go jogging. But instead she got coffee, and . . . and . . . shut up!"

Look it up if you care. Clinton (pardon my language) was trying to capitalize on 9/11 (since Schumer, who she was running against at the time, did have a daughter who was close to the towers on 9/11) and she fabricated the story.

But the point is the wording. Classic Clinton. She didn't exactly say "Chelsea went jogging and ducking into a coffee shop saved her." But she certainly meant for you to hear that.

Just like when she was asked if she'd ever lied to the American people.

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So, you've never lied to the American people? "I never said that!"

I work with a guy who is an insufferable blowhard. You know the type—knows everything and everybody else is inferior and when it turns out he's wrong (every time) it's just that everybody else just misunderstands. Everyone around work has kind of learned to deal with him, mostly just by ignoring him.

So one day we're on a drill rig and Scott . . . I'm just going to call him Scott, you know, just to hang a handle on him . . . Scott is tagging along to test a gadget he's designed. And he's being Scott.

The crusty old driller is annoyed, what with a know-it-all with manicured nails trying to tell him how to do his job, but he's trying to avoid breaking any jaws. Then the drill hand comes into the doghouse with the news that the sensor "Scott" is there to oversee has the wrong coupler to attach to the top drive on that rig.

So the aforementioned crusty old driller looks at "Scott" and says, "Well, that pretty much makes you redundant, doesn't it?"

(Cheers and applause from all in attendance)

That's me. You can't get more irrelevant/redundant than yours truly.

I come on here and blah-blah-blog for Heaven only knows what reason. I try to express myself, but 1) no one will ever read my words, and 2) someone else has always already said it better.

They say there are three kinds of bloggers. Thinkers, linkers, and stinkers. Well, I'm certainly not a thinker, and my attempts at being a stinker are always more annoying than entertaining. So I guess if I'm to provide any benefit to society at all, I ought to become a linker.

Today the person you should read instead of me is Jonah Goldberg, who seldom disappoints. He explains that If Obama really wants to reduce meanness, now is his chance.

President Obama . . . admitted that one of his "few regrets" was his inability "to reduce the polarization and the meanness in our politics."

To conservative ears, Obama's comments fell somewhere between risible and infuriating. Obama has always done his best to demonize and marginalize his opponents.

Any claim that Republicans are the first to break the peace is as absurd as the suggestion that Obama is blameless for the polarization and meanness in our politics.

See? That's what I want to say, I just don't have the words.

Long ago I likened musical instruments to a tap, like one that's used to get syrup out of a maple tree (I can't remember the fancy name). The human spirit has such a vast capacity to feel, but the only way it can be fully released is if the body that's housing the spirit is hooked up to, say, a saxophone and the emotion can be vented.

Well, I don't have the skill with this instrument, a text editor, to properly vent the emotion I feel when a poser lectures me about the very thing he sucks @$$ at. It literally makes my eardrums ache from the pressure.

But listening to someone's else's music has never fully fulfilled me.

So I hop on here and try to vent . . . and I'm just too dumb. I just can't get the steam out.

One of the things I've tried to convey is how maddening it is to be lectured at by that two-bit pipsqueak in the Oval Office. It especially drives me crazy how he berates, belittles, and demeans conservatives and Republicans at every opportunity. He proclaims them to be forever banned from expressing their views, then he wrings his hands about how mean-spirited people are. It makes blood shoot out of my eyeballs.

Well, not literally. But it really does literally make my eardrums ache from the pressure.

At the risk of repeating myself ('cause, I would never do that. Omigosh, I would never do that), let me remind you of Season 1 of the series 24. They had a black guy running for President. He became aware of a serious scandal, decided he had to drop out of the race. His David Axelrod told him "You don't get it, do you? People are not going to let you drop out. They want to vote for a black candidate and they are not going to let anyone, not even you, deny them that chance."

That's Obama. No matter how many stupid things he said or did—things that would have been fatal to any other candidate—it never cost him a thing politically. He couldn't screw it up if he tried (and he really did try hard). People were not going to miss their chance to prove how cool they were by voting for the cool black candidate.

So . . . remind me why people want to say they voted for Trump?

"Look at me! I'm open-minded about bad toupees!"

I'm not getting it. It's identical up to that point. Trump doesn't care about The Law, he'll do what he thinks needs to be done regardless of what The Law says he can do. And nothing he does, no matter how ridiculous it is (I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue!), ever costs him a single supporter. But why? What are they getting out of this that is so vital?

Again, read this column by Michael Brown about the cognitive dissonance of the Trump supporter. I know, I know, you already read it yesterday, because I asked you to and you're good about that. But just in case you didn't . . .

I get it (he says, the paragraph after saying "I'm not getting it"); everybody gets it. People are so sick of Political Correctness; they love that Trump actively defies that ridiculousness. They are so sick of politicians wussing out that they love that Trump will not apologize and back down, no matter how wrong he is.

That's not to say he won't change his position. And that's the problem. Anything he stridently supports today he has stridently opposed at some point it the past. Like Michael Brown said in that link above that you undoubtedly clicked on. "Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth."

That's what I don't get. If people think he's going to go to bat for them . . . well they probably believe Joe Biden is going to cure cancer.

There's got to be some reason Trump supporters aren't deterred by his irrational bluster (I believe the medical term is "Donald Trump Syndrome"). It's not policy; it's not that they want an advocate for their deeply held convictions. In the alternate Universe where he could actually get elected he wouldn't stand up for the positions they claim to love him for now. He's flipped 180° twice on everything in the last 18 months. What makes you think he's all settled on his positions now for the next four years?

He may seem like the enemy of your enemy right now, but he wouldn't be your friend once he's in the White House.

Again, that's completely ignoring the fact that he doesn't stand a chance of actually ever being in the White House without a visitor's pass.

I guess that part's kinda' like when I supported Alan Keyes (back before he was insane). I knew he had no chance at all, but I was totally behind what he was saying. He was everything we needed in a conservative. But, that's where it falls apart. Unlike Trump, Alan Keyes really did represent my values. He really was a conservative and always had been.

You remember what they say derailed Dukakis's campaign. Yep, it was that ridiculous picture of him in the tank. And Howard Dean. The "I Have a Scream!" speech. Bush 41 was "Read my lips—no new taxes." George Allen got thrown out for saying the word "Macaca," even though nobody knew what it meant and it was directed at a democrat operative who had infiltrated a rally to make trouble. Marco Rubio did come back from taking a drink of water when he was thirsty, but not because the media didn't try to assassinate him over it.

If we believe the simplified version of history, it doesn't take much of an arrow to take political soldiers out of battle.

Then there's Trump.

Every couple of days he does something that's far worse than any of the things that conventional wisdom says were fatal to the careers of those politicians. Yet, on he goes. Maybe he could shoot someone in the street without it affecting his support.

I told you. Trump is our version of Obama. Nothing Obama can do, despite his best efforts, will ever cost him politically.

Michael Brown takes a look at the cognitive dissonance of the Trump supporter.

So, funny thing. Hillary says she'll release all her top secret e-mails. But the transcripts of her speeches? No way. Can't see those.

Guy Benson comments on that strangeness in this article.

You know the deal. You'll pay for a book that has information you want to know. It's money you're happy to spend. Can you think of any enlightenment that Hillary Clinton could impart that you'd pay . . . well, anything for, much less half a million dollars?

People aren't paying to listen to her talk. (*shudder. Wow. That voice . . . )

People pay her because she's in a position to give them political favors. That's the kind of low-class, trashy, intolerable, fundamentally un-American crap that happens in Trashcanistan. That's the kind of people the Clintons are. No one is surprised by this.

But Hillary says that "Nobody buys [her]." She says she won't ever release the transcripts, there's nothing incriminating there, and that her word on the matter is all the reassurance anyone needs.

I'm totally going to trust her on that.

And while I'm at it I'm going to trust …

• Car dealers
• Takata airbags
• Government issue Indian blankets
• Bill Clinton's Teenage Girl Babysitting Service
• That guy in the van that has "free ice cream" painted on the side
• A Brazilian mosquito
• Free mammograms
• Rosie O'Donnell's fitness book
• A glass guardrail
• The guy working the parking lot for "a couple of dollars for a bus ticket"
• Screen doors on a spaceship … or a submarine
• A photocopied Super Bowl ticket
• Sensitivity training from Donald Trump
• That bottle of Crystal Clear Sparkling Water from Flint Michigan
• The friend request from that hot looking girl with no posts and no mutual friends
• Saran wrap on a beaker full of smallpox
• An art critique by Stevie Wonder
• A crocheted space suit, handmade by your Aunt Erma in Des Moines
• Accounting advice from Bernie Madoff
• Jeffery Dahmer's gourmet burgers
• Hygiene tips from Michael Moore-on
• An adobe cruise ship
• A glowing review of a David Baldacci book.
• Barack Obama's jobs reports.
• An airplane designed by that guy at work. You know the one . . .
• "Never Fail Battle Tactics," by George Armstrong Custer.
• "Safe Fitness at Home," by Harry Reid.
• Ted Kennedy's Uber Service
• An Oxy prescription written in crayon
• That post that Bill Gates will send me a million dollars for forwarding.

I first became aware of this concept when I was a young boy. My dad told me a story about when he was serving a mission in New Zealand. They rode rental bikes and one day while they were crossing a bridge my dad's bike broke. He dreaded going back to the rental place and telling them he had broken the bike. He was sure he would be charged for it. His companion said "Let me handle this."

They went back to the shop and my dad's companion said "Is this the kind of junk you rent here? My companion could have been hurt by your inferior product! You're lucky your defective bike didn't result in a serious injury or even death, or you'd be in a lot of trouble."

And the shop owner apologized profusely and made sure they got another bike at no charge.

The lesson I took away was there always seems to be a completely different way of looking at things than the one that seems obvious to you. This, as I have learned, is called "spin."

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to collect a few of those today. You'll be surprised at how many you come across.

A close personal friend of mine came home with a bonus once. He was excited at how pleased his wife was going to be. Instead she was upset. "Oh, no, this is awful." What? Why? "This must mean your boss is planning to fire you and this is how he's softening the blow."

Oh.

Okay. You know if I'm talking about spin I'm going to get to Barack "You Lie!" Obama. Barack Obama will not acknowledge Islamic terrorism. He refuses to say the words. He will not acknowledge that the "religion" he grew up in is responsible for very nearly all of the terrorism in the world today. And he won't say why. But we kind of know.

He doesn't like America. He certainly doesn't care for Americans. He figures being President is a good stepping stone for being something he really wants to be, like UN General Secretary, and he doesn't want to upset any of the nations in Trashcansitan by defending what is ostensibly his country.

He sympathizes with the muslim cause. I don't think he's muslim. To be that he would have to be religious, which he is most definitely not. Setting aside that Islam is not really a religion, it's a political ideology, Obama is still not a muslim; in the words of Randy Quaid in Days of Thunder: "Hell, he's not really anything."

But if he had to choose sides nobody doubts that Obama would choose islam over America.

Okay. So . . . in his speech in the mosque in Baltimore Obama explained why he doesn't say call Islamic terrorists Islamic. He says that to do that would be to give them legitimacy. He says that Islam is a legitimate religion that they have hijacked and he refuses to be an accomplice in their masquerade by giving legitimacy to their counterfeit platform. That's why he won't say the words, because the bad guys want him to.

Which is a pretty darn good explanation.

It's a total lie. It's complete bullcrap, but it's a great explanation. It's like the science officer on Alien explaining why he wasn't helping eradicate the threat. Oh. Well, as long as you have a good explanation . . .

See how that works? You can take anything and put a complete opposite spin on it. Anything.

I apologize these durn posts take so cotton-picking long to get to the point. If I had more time I'd make them shorter. But I figure who cares about good writing in something no one reads? That's like putting money into a production that's going to air on MSNBC.

Oh, and really, read this article by Dennis Prager about what Obama really said in that speech.

That is all.