Was it not Abraham Lincoln that said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.”? Or words to that effect. It should be on every coat-of-arms, particularly if one is in the public eye. It should fly on banners at Mar-A-Lago, Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin.
I see that Prince Harry has given another public interview. The first one that he and Meghan gave to Oprah Winfrey went so well and clearly created a lasting bond to the Royal Family. Perhaps they’re not completely clear on the concept of “stepping back”. Traditionally, it involves keeping your mouth shut and not being seen much. Even his late mother, Princess Diana, who most all of us greatly admired, and who admittedly was harassed by the media, managed to keep herself in the spotlight at regular intervals.
I’m always amused when some celebrity – a Kardashian and one of their ex-spouses, for example – is going through a rough patch and asks for “privacy”. Then they show up in a new reality show and on the cover of People. No, no. That’s not how privacy works. If you’re Lizzie Borden, you wait until the trial is over, go into seclusion, and then wait one hundred years until they make your house / crime scene into a museum and cozy B&B. That’s the way you let go. Privacy and people forget that you chopped your father to bits on the couch.
I’m even more amused when politicians try to “walk it back”. Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader, is, to quote the nightly news, “scrambling” to take back comments he made, and were recorded, in a bout of verbal diarrhea right after the attack on the Capitol. It appears that he didn’t think as much of Donald Trump at the time as he publicly told us. Then he told us that’s not really what he said. Yes, Kevin, it is – it’s on tape. You telling your Republican colleagues that Donald ought to get out of town. That actually was a pretty good idea, and Mr. Trump, a master of verbal diarrhea, should have listened. Then there is the ever-entertaining Congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene. She who “can’t remember” suggesting that Trump should have declared martial law and kept his position of the White House. Apparently, she thought that as he’d already moved in, he could just stay. Equally apparent, she’s not fully aware that that’s not the way democracy works. She’s also the one that tweeted a complaint that “war is big business” and how frightfully wrong that is, just days after she and her husband bought thousands of dollars in major defense contractor stock, and again just as the invasion of Ukraine was shaping up. It is she who has left a social media trail of fascism, conspiracy fabrication, and general stupidity as long and wide as Highway 95 from her home state up to DC. It’s an echo of the Trump Doctrine: “If you say something misleading and inaccurate loudly enough and often enough, some will believe it.”
Speaking of Donald Trump’s off-cited claims of voter fraud and the “stolen election”, it’s come to light that his former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, was registered to vote in three different states. He apparently is still registered in South Carolina and Virginia, but was removed from the registration rolls in North Carolina, where he listed a mobile home address for property he didn’t own. So, despite his best efforts to vote often, his boss still lost. Here in New Hampshire, one of our congressional candidates, Matt Mowers, a Trump worker in the State Department, apparently voted by absentee ballot in the New Hampshire primary in 2016, and then registered in New Jersey, listing his parents’ address, and voted in the New Jersey primary later in June. Both of them have issued statements that do nothing to disavow their voting records. So much for a claim of “voter fraud” among Republicans.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Rick DeSantis. OK, enough said. It’s difficult to maintain a level of sanity and civil discourse when you’re an elected official in a state where your base doesn’t espouse either. Gov. Abbott wants to consider immigration an “invasion”, and thus declare a state of emergency. His massive truck inspections at the border did turn up some worn tires and oil leaks, but no drugs or illegals. Needless to say, the results didn’t get quite the coverage of the launch. Governor DeSantis, who many say has national aspirations, has been a pandemic-denier, and most recently signed anti-LGBT legislation after stating that children learning about themselves would be considered “inappropriate”. Particularly if you’re not straight, white, and old. His state education department has rejected fifty (that’s 50) math textbooks that he and his people consider objectionable. Really? Must be some gay multiplying and dividing going on there, or perhaps some trans equations are lurking amongst the pages.
Finally, I’d like to point out all of the unvaccinated professional athletes that choose to “speak out”. According to the sports news today, about a half dozen members of our own Boston Red Sox won’t be travelling with the team to Toronto because of Canada’s vaccine regulations. Stated pitcher Tanner Houck, it’s a “choice”. Really, Tanner? From someone that’s covered his body in tattoos? Spreading infectious disease to your teammates is just a question of personal freedom? Did you not understand that in professional sports, a certain amount of travel, often via airplanes, in close quarters – would be required? Why don’t you just pitch remotely, like via ZOOM? Set up a pitching mound in your den. Once again, the baseball players’ association has managed to block requirements that players be fully vaccinated, while clubs have mandated that the people mowing the outfield must be. I don’t typically cheer for the Yankees, but they have no such obstacles when they travel to Toronto next weekend. The team is 100% vaccinated. So, a shout-out to Aaron Rodgers, Kyrie Irving, Tanner Houck, and all the unvaccinated athletes that are keeping the world safe for the spread of infection. When the numbers are creeping back up, take a moment to look inward.
Then there is this item of great, universal interest. Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson have been dating now for six whole months. Can you believe it? SIX MONTHS!! Seems like just yesterday they started out together. Of course, with this exciting Hollywood news, the break-up could be just around the corner. To quote a source for the article, “He understands her priorities.” Isn’t that great? Can you hear the sarcasm dripping onto the keyboard? I don’t want to the be the one to jinx it, because we all know how durable relationships are in the entertainment business, but . . . . .
Finally, I’d like to give a round of applause to Vladimir Putin and his merry band of oligarchs. To hear him speak, he’s been invited into Ukraine to “free Ukrainians” from the tyranny of, well, democracy. Yes, Mr. Putin wants us to think of him as a deeply humanitarian savior, a man of the people, if you’re willing to overlook the billions of rubles that he and his cronies have stashed away in real estate, yachts, and secret bank accounts. Empire-building, it turns out, is not quite as popular, and doesn’t command quite the prestige and nationalistic fervor that it did in Napoleon’s or even Adolf Hitler’s day. It’s even becoming more difficult to put a happy spin on death and destruction. It’s risky when you bomb the heck out of a neighbor, killing thousands upon thousands of civilians, and then claim the world press staged the whole thing to make Russians look bad. There aren’t many that believed that “staged” thing when the world saw liberation pictures of Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau. We are equally skeptical of the images coming from Kharkiv, Mariupol, and other cities in Eastern Ukraine.
So, a word to all those getting themselves into trouble either in the neighborhood, on the international stage, in politics, or on social media. Watch what you say to an answering machine, what you tweet under your own name, or what you tell a reporter for a national publication. If you’re a head of state with conflicts with, or territorial designs on your neighbors, that’s pretty straightforward – rethink it. History won’t view you favorably. And, It can and probably will come back either to haunt you or bite you in the you-know-what.
I'm Thinking...No! 