Cheap Seats 2021

This and That - 09/08

By Rich Trzupek
  On Trashcanistan:
  The parallels between the fall of Saigon and the fall of Kabul are obvious, but there is an important difference to think about. The US negotiated with the enemy in each case and the enemy agreed to cease hostilities and respect the existing government in each case. In each case we said that if the enemy didn’t live up to their end of the deal, we would return and kick some more ass. And, of course in each case, the enemy didn’t live up to their end of the deal and we didn’t do squat.
  In the case of Vietnam, Nixon was so emasculated by Watergate that he couldn’t do anything once the North Vietnamese renewed their drive south, and Ford had no chance of taking action after the Tricky One left office.
  In the case of Kabul, President Dementia and/or his handlers couldn’t be bothered to even pretend to try. The hackneyed excuse “it’s Trump’s fault” is even sillier in this case than usual. Trump planned a withdrawal. Biden conducted a fire drill.
  Why do it? Why toss away all that equipment? Why let the Taliban embarrass America six ways to Sunday? I think the incomparable Mark Steyn gets it right, as usual:
  “With respect to Afghanistan, the puppeteers waggling the dead husk that is Joe Biden have made a political calculation - that, on the home front, the fact of departure will count for more than the manner of departure. Joe’s not a ubiquitous figure in the news cycle the way Trump was, so he can sit in the basement for a few more days - and, in electoral terms, America’s total humiliation in its umpteenth unwon war in some krappistan no one can find on a map will ultimately work for the Dems.”
  On California:
  Likely no one notices, but as a matter of Cheap Seats policy I never refer to people by their race. I don’t care about race. Nor do I care about hair color, eye color, freckles, psoriasis or anything else that makes one person look different from another person.
  As you may be aware, Governor of California Gavin Newsom is facing a recall vote since he is apparently so far to the left that even Californians – well, some anyway – are disgusted. What you may not know is that the leading Republican candidate to replace Newsom is conservative talk show host Larry Elder.
  Newsom and Elder have differently pigmented skin. Because of Cheap Seats policy, you’ll have to figure out which. But, Newsom and his supporters accuse Elder of being a racist, an accusation which appears to me to make Newsom and his supporters racists. However, this is California so racism isn’t actually about race, it’s about the color of your politics. It’s cool to be blue on the left coast, but for them red is the new black.
  On Amanada McKittrick Ros:
  I was recently blessed to discover Amanada McKittrick Ros, who appears to be the best horrible writer in the history of the universe. She was so bad, but so good at being so bad, that writers like Twain, Lewis, Tolkien and others fairly worshipped the lady.
  Amanada’s style has been marvelously described thus: “spasmodically coiling and uncoiling sentences that never arrive at any discernible meaning, the weirdly jarring turns of phrase, the riot of clashing metaphors, the convulsively lurching narratives, the long descriptive passages that seem to correspond to nothing in the physical world, the lunatic perorations in her nightmarish travesty of English.”
  Here’s a bit of the master at work: “Her frame sometimes shook to chorus a thirsty sob, as if she were again contemplating a similar ordeal. Eventually, however, the signs of nervousness, that now visited her, died and withered away, and a miraculous peace, sometimes seen on the marbled faces of Roman statuary, that exhibit strongly the polished calm of revengeful rulers, rested on her features.” (From Delina Delaney, by Amanada McKittrick Ros).
  Why bring up Amanada’s awfulness? Because she appears to me to the epitome of the liberal commentator. Not that Amanada was terribly political. But that ability to vomit words on a page in a desperate attempt to sound intelligent; her utter lack of a sense of humor; the complete absence of any self-awareness and her completely unearned self-assurance. These are the characteristics that have made generations of legendary writers adore Amanada, and how often my conservative friends do we not find that same wonderful awfulness in commentary on the left today?
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com