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On the eve of the Iowa caucuses Monday, we got to wondering just who or what lives up to the description of "Iowa Stubborn" in Meredith Wilson's "Music Man":
And we're so by God stubborn
We can stand touching noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye to eye!
Is it Trump, DeSantis, Haley—or the legions of lawyers waging endless lawfare against Trump? It's a trick question. Lucretia—the host for this week's episode—actually hails originally from Mason City, Iowa, which is the inspiration for "River City" in the Broadway play, which explains a lot about our Lucretia when you think about it.
Anyway, John and Steve declare their picks if they were caucusgoers, but then the episode turns quickly to the latest frontiers of the lawfare against Trump, from which we have an inside perch of sorts: John is busy spending the weekend workng up an amicus brief for the upcoming Supreme Court hearing on the case involving Colorado's attempt to ban Trump from the ballot on grounds he is an "insurrectionist." (Trump, not John.) And since the brief have to be turned in next Thursday for this fast-track case, it's very fresh in mind.
We also consider the latest developments in other Trump cases, too. Did Trump's lawyers really claim that in fact he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue if he was back in the White House. (Short answer: No.) And what accounts for Hunter Biden's reversal of his refusal to submit to a House subpoena for a deposition? Has Texas first the first shot of a new rebellion by taking over part of the souther border? Has the Supreme Court signaled that enough is enough with rampant urban homelessness by granting cert in an appeal of lower court rulings that the homeless have 8th Amendment (that's right, 8th Amendment) rights to sleep on the streets wherever they want? (The Court had previously declined to hear this issue.)
All that and our usual good cheer and raspberries, including the fact that we recorded on Edmund Burke's birthday. To paraphrase the great lyric from our title tune, "Oh, there's nothin' halfway/About the Whisky way we treat you/If we treat you/Which we may not do at all."
John Yoo
'Lucretia'
Steve Hayward
Discussion (5)
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Before clicking on NYT.com, I try to predict how they will handle a story that reflects poorly on Dems. Will they:
A) Simply ignore it.
B) Report it but place the story in an obscure spot and bury the lede, giving them cover to say they reported the story while hoping as few people see it as possible.
C) Report it fully and honestly.
D) Gaslight it to show what everyone is reporting as negative is actually good.
I knew C was out of the question on the Austin story, and I guessed maybe B. This morning they went to Plan D, telling us how great it was that Austin is a private man, and he keeps a low profile because that's what you have to do as a black man in the military, which after all is why we need all those DEI initiatives in the military. Have to admit that I did not see that one coming.
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@WilliamWarford
The retired 4-Star SecDef knows that if an E-1 went AWOL and had the security clearance of Secret or above he would be looking at Article 15, at least.
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In all honesty, I think I would have preferred Trump to retire to Mar a Lago, and I would have enthusiastically supported DeSantis. But with Trump in the race, I've got to go there. DeSantis always had an uphill climb to beat Trump. He would have to run a good campaign and Trump would have to fall. Trump hasn't slipped. The lawfare has elevated him in the eyes of the base, and Trump, while maybe not at his best, has been good enough. DeSantis, meanwhile, turned his campaign over to a bunch of DC hacks and has not demonstrated the charisma necessary to compete on the national stage. The proof of the plumbs is in the pudding, and DeSantis has come up short. I'm also very skeptical of the conventional wisdom that DeSantis would be a more electable general election candidate.
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DeSantis strikes me as one of those people who would make an excellent president but a not-so-great presidential candidate. I think he is exceptionally bright and has full command of issues and (too much) data. He would do for the country what he did for Florida, but he's just not connecting with the public on the national scale.
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I think the moral of Austin's tale is that the SecDef isn't running anything. So who is? I suspect the folks who are calling the shots didn't require Senate confirmation.