Joe Biden and Me
Who doesn’t love a quiet seaside vacation?
Lookie here, friends, acolytes and those who clicked on the wrong link. We have a situation.
The situation is that I’m in a remote corner of Eastern Europe, putatively to take a week of R&R after a fairly grueling 13-week stage of book research. The country is called Montenegro, which most Americans probably have never heard of. It is known for its mountains, its gorgeous Adriatic seacoast and its long history of mafia leadership. Search “Milo Đukanović.” Or just “European kleptocracies.”
That’s my location and sure enough, if I look out the window, the blue Adriatic does beckon. But I’m down with Covid. Basically, like Biden at Rehoboth Beach, only I’m having a better week.
The point is, I’m hacking my brains out and not feeling much like stacking subs at the moment. But there is this one brief thing I’d like to share:
Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about an infotainment star on the populist, regime-darling, Serbian TV channel called Pink. It makes Fox News Channel look like C-SPAN. The host of its morning show, Novo Jutro, is a little spark plug named Jovana Jeremić, who mixes news interviews (including with President Aleksandar Vučić) with hard-right commentary, morning-show fluff and spontaneous displays of booty-shaking dances. Plus maximum cleavage. Her eyelashes are the size of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. If she fit into a type, I guess it would be Manic Pixie Fever Dream Girl. Oh, and she’s the most popular host in Serbia.
My wife wondered how anyone so downmarket and vulgar could so succeed? But then I started thinking of Fox’s buffoons — Jesse Waters, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Greg Gutfeld, Janine Pirro — and how every day they go on the air to attack liberals, float unsubstantiated accusations, blow racist dog whistles (DEI), propagate conspiracy delusions and generally pander to the dumbest, least informed, most bigoted, most resentful, most gullible Americans with rhetoric they know isn’t true even as they say it live on the air.
And then I thought of the MAGA stooges in Congress who do exactly the same thing. Jordan. Cruz. Hawley. Comer. Gosar. Greene. Boebert. Vance. There are literally hundreds of them. And didn’t all of these people rise to extraordinary prominence without scruples, intellectual honesty or any single thing on earth besides ambition?
And then I thought about Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan, the Kardashians, OnlyFans and the entire Family Trump. And then I had my answer.
“If you ask me,” I finally replied, “there is nothing you can’t accomplish in this world if you don’t care about your dignity.”
That is all. I shall now return to coughing. It is something I do quite well.
Hope you're feeling better. There are a few politicians that make it without pandering & naked ambition, but they mostly have family money. Since the Supreme[ly Stupid] Court allowed all money from all donors we have gotten the predictable result: people who will pimp themselves for cash. It's time to try again for campaign reform.
It's truly one big Jerry Springer Show...with few exceptions, only the vulgar succeed. One could blame Springer but he tried an Oprah-like show and it didn't work. The politiicans and news people are giving the public what they crave sadly.
Regarding Montenegro, I think of the racy film by that name in the 80s. I made the mistake of taking a date to see it, who didn't share my appreciation for the NR (almost X) art film.