46 Comments

Utterly brilliant! It wasn't until the John Barron quote that I wasn't sure it was all an extended excerpt from the NYT or The Hill.

Expand full comment

the john barron quote locked the NYT link in for me.

Expand full comment

this is so good, because it's so true. especially the 'many democrats' mention. joe manchin might have referred to the obvious reluctance of the president to handle any serpents as an example of his all too secular grounding.

Expand full comment

Manchin would def be a fan of the snake-handling in the scribe-appended “longer ending” of Mark

Expand full comment

Ironically, anyone having to deal with Joe Manchin should also be adept at snake handling

Expand full comment

serpent libel!

Expand full comment

Ouch. It really is stunning that Biden can pass a piece of major legislation that 75% of the country approves of, and the reporting and opinion pieces take the angle, “will this hurt him?”

Didn’t Trump have big Rose Garden celebrations every time he managed to sign something without getting ink from his Sharpie all over himself?

Expand full comment

It's a reflexive tic by the media. EVERYTHING is seen through the lens of Republican political operatives. So even passing enormously popular legislation must be cast as somehow disadvantaging the Democrats.

"Welcome to NPR's Weekend Edition. I'm Scott Simon. Congress this week passed, in the dead of night, one of the most expensive pieces of legislation ever written. Some say that the covid relief bill spell doom for Democrats in the mid-term elections. Others think that this effectively ends Joe Biden's presidency. Here to discuss this with me are New York Times columnist David Brooks, and LA Times columnist Jonah Goldberg."

Expand full comment

Pitch perfect, although I’m surprised Brooks can spare the time from his side-gig walking Mark Zuckerberg’s dog.

Expand full comment

If it were only walking, it would be OK. But, the grooming, shampooing (he could afford real poo, but the NYT was already using their real poo for anti-Biden stories), nail cutting really take up his time.

Expand full comment

Brooks needs a side gig because he’s going to have to put his wife through college soon

Expand full comment

Oof. Mean but fair.

Expand full comment

Her first course will be about deli meats

Expand full comment

Jennifer Rubin--yeah, I know, but she was great during Trump--makes this very point today in WaPo. The MSM, when they bleat about bipartisanship, keep looking at the Republicans. She praises Biden and his people for ignoring all that, and finding bipartisanship in the agreement of 75% of the country.

Expand full comment

I can’t read her column because WaPo is paywalled, but I generally agree. It would take me a very long time to actually *trust* Jennifer Rubin, but she has been much better than 95% of the Never-Trumps.

Expand full comment

I think she is genuinely horrified at what the GOP has become.

Expand full comment

“It used to be a lovely little country club where we made bad-faith arguments, shat on working people, and reminisced about the good old days of racism and misogyny. But now you’ve gone too far!”

Expand full comment

I think so, too. But I'm not sure if she just wants to go back to what it was pre-Trump, which inevitably leads to the next Trump. Either way, she is still playing wingnut games and maybe donating part of the proceeds to the oppressed? I dunno. She seems like a net drag on humanizing American politics.

Expand full comment

Look, I don't even trust Charles Johnson yet.

Expand full comment

Is Biden not a Democrat?

Then the failure scenario is the one the establishment, GOP-suppoting media are required to run with.

If you want, uh, accuracy in media reporting, you have to look elsewhere other than the big boys.

Expand full comment

Will no one one rid us of there troublesome “Centrists”?

Expand full comment

thank dog the NYT is there to help us snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

Expand full comment

This just shows how waterlogged Biden's plans are with the majority of voters. He will drown Dems in the midterms with antics like these.

Expand full comment

"McDaniel added, 'His so-called walk doesn't count in any case as he wasn't wearing Temple-approved undergarments so far as we know.'"

Expand full comment

I keep forgetting she’s a Romney for some reason.

Expand full comment

So did she when it became convenient

Expand full comment

I'm waiting for her to reclaim it. That's how we'll know Trumpism is dead. Kinda dead. At least in name.

Expand full comment

when she recalls being human, i'll really know it's dead. along with irony.

Expand full comment

That's some optimism!

Expand full comment

comes with the territory of liberalism.

Expand full comment

Well, now, the fucked upedness of the Republicans in a nutshell. Of course, this precludes a LOL post but there you go.

Two quibbles, tho'.

The characterization of Psaki is a little off and a little negative. She is in fact a perfect press secretary, as good as one can be in that position. Speaks clearly, lies and dissembles for the boss when necessary, very elegantly tells reporter to fuck themselves when incited by obnoxious, stupid and/or gotcha questions. OTOH, I'm a confessed Psaki Pshipper so sure, YMMV.

As for the last line:

Wrong: "“I think one thing is pretty clear,” says John Barron, a hotel executive in Palm Beach, Florida; “Joe Biden can’t swim.”"

Corrected: “I think one thing is pretty clear,” says John Barron, a hotel executive in Palm Beach, Florida; “Sleepy Joe Biden can’t swim.” There; the subtlety removed as it should be.

Expand full comment

Maybe Psaki should have been more "We're more focused on the miracles President Biden performs when he's on the job. If he performs a miracle here and there during his leisure time I don't think that's any less appropriate than spending the afternoon cheating on the golf course."

Expand full comment

That's beautiful.

Expand full comment

Turning [a walk on] water into whine!

Expand full comment

(Turning Water Into Whine is one of the underrated skills of Ted Cruz.)

Expand full comment

New York Times: Biden Narrowly Avoids Drowning, Dems Concerned

Washington Post: No Polling Bump for Biden "Miracle"

Fox News: Migrants Can Swim

Expand full comment

Great, so I’m the asshole who has to make the Biden as Chauncey Gardiner reference...

Expand full comment

They elected him to bring down the deficit, cut entitlements, and reach across the aisle.

They elected him to be a real Republican, unlike that loser RINO?

Expand full comment

What, "riverine life" would have sounded too New Yorker-y?

Expand full comment

That's some awesome satire there. Nicely done!

Expand full comment

Ha ha! But let's get scholarly: does Joe's elimination of the heavy Trumpian import duty on Irish and Scotch whiskeys parallel Rabbi Jeshua's stunt at the wedding at Cana?

Expand full comment

I too have walked on water. Sure, usually the solid form (ice, snow, sleet), but it was water natheless

Expand full comment

No one specified that it had to be in liquid state. The judges will allow it.

Expand full comment

"secular grounding" means Biden isn't Catholic enough; but walking on water and turning water into sacramental wine (Harumph, harumphed the Evangelicals) means Biden is too Papist,...er, too Catholic. Pundits are almost all...er, Caucasian, and high-earning, and alumni of 'elitist' educational institutions, therefore...Repugnican. So peculiar no one brings this up on teevee.

Expand full comment