I had a white supremacist—just full stop; three reverse pictures of Dorian Gray; what should have been a complete set of the two door guardians from a logic puzzle (one always tells the truth and one always lies), but the first one did not arrive with the rest of the shipment; an enormous wind sock attempting to sell used cars; and a shark disguised as a meter reader. I really should not, in retrospect, have put two hand-puppets from a wisely canceled local-access children’s show in charge of a Cabinet department, and I definitely should not have been taking legal advice from a half-hour-long program in which Pat Boone urges you with increasing intensity to buy sixty-eight CDs from the 1950s.
I thought I had the best people, but I had a big plane filled with money, a bear that has wandered into a school by mistake, zombie James Buchanan, a pair of Ivanka Trump pumps that want to speak to a manager, the hair of a televangelist, a Pixar villain whose origin story involved a tanning bed struck by lightning, and an anthropomorphic liver. I had a scorpion asking for a ride across a river; an ominous forwarded email with a sad face drawn on it; a statue brought to life by the love of its sculptor, but, in a twist on the classic Pygmalion scenario, it was a Confederate statue; a piece of toast on which sexist words appeared for no reason; a gallon container of snake oil in an expensive leather coat; everyone at a surf-side bar on a Thursday; a reality-TV contestant; and Anthony Scaramucci.
I am chagrined. I thought that a pick-up artist book in a big-collared shirt, an animatronic statue of Rutherford B. Hayes reprogrammed by HYDRA, and the Thing that appears in the mirror when you blink were good people to surround yourself with, but, in fact, no. A television chicken sales personality, a stand of reeds into which hateful words have been whispered for months, a bag of money with a severed finger in it, a book by a Fox News personality brought to life by the love of a lonely child and a phrenology head—not the elite team I had been led to suspect!
These were not, I now realize, the best people. I get this sense from how frequently they keep being forced to quit, getting charged with and admitting to crimes.
Look, if Melania Trump’s campaign has proved anything, it is that nobody knows what “Be Best” means. But somehow I feel like it is not this. I am quite let down! Next time, I will be more specific.
August 23, 2018
HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO BRETT KAVANAUGH?
Now it is time to turn to the period of unpleasantness surrounding the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court—a time many recall less-than-fondly, doubtless because they were forced to watch the nightmarish spectacle of a man briefly afraid he might not get exactly what he wanted.
HOW DARE YOU?!
HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO BRETT KAVANAUGH?
HOW DARE YOU DENY HIM THIS SEAT?!
Listen—NO, YOU listen!
Do you know who Brett Kavanaugh is? Brett Kavanaugh went to Georgetown Prep!
BRETT KAVANAUGH IS AN OPTIMIST WHO LOOKS ON THE SUNSHINE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN!
If Brett does not secure a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, this country will be IN SHAMBLES! THIS IS HIS BIRTHRIGHT! Do you know how embarrassing it is for a Georgetown Prep graduate to NOT be on the Supreme Court? They are literally 12 PERCENT of the court! THIS IS PROBABLY THE WORST INDIGNITY YOU CAN INFLICT ON A HUMAN BEING!
ALL BRETT IS ASKING FOR IS DUE PROCESS! DUE PROCESS BEFORE HE IS DEPRIVED OF HIS GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO A SEAT ON THE HIGHEST COURT IN THE LAND, WHERE HE WILL DETERMINE THE FATES OF MILLIONS!
Apply the standard you want to apply to your husband-brother-son. He should be allowed to be careless. He should be allowed to like beer.
BRETT LIKES BEER!
WHO DOESN’T LIKE BEER!
BRETT ISN’T YELLING!
YOU’RE YELLING!
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!
THIS IS BRETT’S SEAT!
The Founders did not break from Britain so a landed white gentleman accused of sexual misconduct could NOT be put in charge of something!
ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE HER, AMERICA? OVER HIM, AMERICA?
YOU HEARD THE WOMAN! SHE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE TO FLY! YET SHE FLEW HERE! SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER ALL THE DETAILS OF THE EVENING, WHEREAS HE KEPT A CALENDAR, LIKE HIS FATHER BEFORE HIM!
HE IS NOT EMOTIONAL!
YOU ARE EMOTIONAL!
NO, YOU LISTEN!
If this is how you are going to behave, if you are going to believe this woman, if you will let her stand there and destroy his life (well, not his life, technically, nor his freedom, just his chance of a seat on the highest court in the land), then what kind of country is this going to be?
They are going to drag him here in front of all these OTHER MEN and deny him a seat on the Supreme Court, and he will have to walk home confused and disoriented, and he will have to live with the feeling that he is NOT ON THE SUPREME COURT for as long as he lives.
This is OPPRESSION! TO BE DENIED POWER OVER OTHERS! IF THAT IS NOT WHAT IT IS, DO NOT TELL ME.
The right to decide what happens to other people is one a man like him is born with, ONE OF THOSE INALIENABLE RIGHTS, AND IT SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN FROM HIM WITHOUT BEAUTIFUL DUE PROCESS!
NOW HIS WORLD IS FALLING APART! NOW HE IS BEING FORCED TO GO OVER HIS HIGH SCHOOL BEHAVIOR WITH A FINE-TOOTHED COMB! THIS IS NOT FAIR! THIS SCRUTINY! THIS DEMAND TO ACCOUNT! HE DESERVES THIS POWER! GIVE IT TO HIM! STOP ASKING HIM THESE QUESTIONS!
STOP SAYING THINGS! SHHH! BE QUIET! STOP RESISTING BRETT KAVANAUGH. STOP TRYING TO
