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Tommy Carcetti

(44,252 posts)
2. Reminds me of the 2016 OpEd...
Fri Mar 31, 2023, 11:28 AM
Mar 2023

...from Garrison Keillor:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html

When this is over, you will have nothing that you want
By Garrison Keillor
Washington Post

Aug 31, 2016 at 3:00 pm

The cap does not look good on you, it's a duffer's cap, and when you come to the microphone, you look like the warm-up guy, the guy who announces the license number of the car left in the parking lot, doors locked, lights on, motor running. The brim shadows your face, which gives a sinister look, as if you'd come to town to announce the closing of the pulp factory. Your eyes look dead and your scowl does not suggest American greatness so much as American indigestion. Your hair is the wrong color: People don't want a president to be that shade of blond. You know that now.

Why doesn't someone in your entourage dare to say these things? So sad. The fans in the arenas are wild about you, and Sean Hannity is as loyal as they come, but Rudy and Christie and Newt are reassuring in that stilted way of hospital visitors. And The New York Times treats you like the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect in Manhattan where the Times is the Supreme Liberal Jewish Anglican Arbiter of Who Has The Smarts and What Goes Where. When you came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, and they are not like you: Jews didn't go in for big yachts and a fleet of aircraft — they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement. In Queens, blacks were a threat to property values — they belonged in the Bronx, not down the street. To the Times, Queens is Cleveland. Bush league. You are Queens. The casinos were totally Queens, the gold faucets in your triplex, the bragging, the insults, but you wanted to be liked by Those People. You wanted Mike Bloomberg to invite you to dinner at his townhouse. You wanted the Times to run a three-part story about you, that you meditate and are a passionate kayaker and collect 14th-century Islamic mosaics. You wish you were that person but you didn't have the time.

Running for president is your last bid for the respect of Manhattan. If you were to win election, they couldn't ridicule you anymore. They could be horrified, but there is nothing ridiculous about being Leader of the Free World. You have B-52 bombers at your command. When you go places, a battalion of security guys comb the environs. You attract really really good speechwriters who give you Churchillian cadences and toss in quotes from Emerson and Aeschylus and Ecclesiastes.

Labor Day and it is not going well. You had a very bad month. You tossed out those wisecracks on Twitter and the Earth shook and your ratings among white suburban women with French cookware declined. The teleprompter is not your friend. You are in the old tradition of locker room ranting and big honkers in the steam room, sitting naked, talking man talk, griping about the goons and ginks and lousy workmanship and the uppity broads and the great lays and how you vanquished your enemies at the bank. Profanity is your natural language and vulgar words so as not to offend the Christers but the fans can still hear it and that's something they love about you. You are their guy. You are losing and so are they but they love you for it.

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Karma, baby! ProudMNDemocrat Mar 2023 #1
Reminds me of the 2016 OpEd... Tommy Carcetti Mar 2023 #2
This is spectacular. Joinfortmill Mar 2023 #4
Yup, it was the worst decision of his life. I wonder how much Putin influenced it. Joinfortmill Mar 2023 #3
My thoughts inthewind21 Mar 2023 #5
I had (mistakenly) expected way too much from my country... Pluvious Mar 2023 #6
Yes. As painful as Hotel Reality is there really isn't any alternative. Boomerproud Mar 2023 #8
I wanted him to step aside or be removed. Grammy23 Mar 2023 #10
Well said (nt) Pluvious Mar 2023 #11
Message auto-removed Name removed Mar 2023 #7
Not yet. Ms. Toad Mar 2023 #9
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