Kayleigh McEnany deliberately misses the point
Recently I endured having to watch Jim Jordan’s hectoring abuse of 80 year old Dr. Anthony Fauci. I watched him berate and bully and sanctimoniously lecture the man in the name of phoney outrage and performance indignation. He verbally manhandled this distinguished doctor, this doctor who spent most of his long life serving the American people by trying to keep them safe.
Remember, Jordan is the same creep who abandoned his duty of care to his students when he was a coach at Ohio State University, when he refused to protect them from the team doctor who repeatedly sexually assaulted them. Later Jordan cried and begged one of those same students not to corroborate those accounts of sexual abuse against that same team doctor, for fear that it would expose his complicit, hypocritical self in the whole sordid and disgusting matter. Were I a writer of fiction I would have my work cut out for me inventing a more despicable villain than Jim Jordan.
As a writer for Palmer Report, however, it’s my job to listen to and read about these disgusting people. But as a human being I am heartily sick of them. So when Kayleigh McEnany appeared on Fox News and implied that President Joe Biden was “inflaming tensions,” when he offered his opinion that Derek Chauvin was guilty of murdering George Floyd, I had to wonder what alternative universe she must occupy.
Remember, this is Donald Trump’s former Press Secretary. Donald Trump, the man who has spent his entire adult life inflaming tensions. Trump is the man who had peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters outside the White House teargassed so he could hoist a Bible in front of a church as a cheap photo op. Trump is the guy who tweeted “when the looting starts the shooting starts.” So when McEnany suggests that President Biden shouldn’t “inflame tensions,” and she says it without irony and even manages to do it with a straight face, perhaps she should have her tonedeaf head examined.
What President Biden said, what has McEnany clutching her fake pearls, was “I’ve come to know George’s family … I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they’re feeling… they’re a good family and they’re calling for peace and tranquillity no matter what that verdict is. And I’m praying that the verdict is the right verdict, and I think it’s overwhelming in my view. I wouldn’t say that if the jury weren’t sequestered now.”
Since the President was careful to wait for the jury to be sequestered his words couldn’t have had any impact on the outcome of the jury’s deliberations. The healing message of the President’s words and the gentle way he said them made his benign intentions clear. McEnany conveniently overlooked that little detail.
But more to the point, try to imagine if Trump had said something so diplomatic and carefully phrased. Then imagine what McEnany would have done with those words. She would crow to the sky at how “presidential” he’s being, of course. McEnany is a loathsome partisan hack who is too out of touch with reality to be allowed to comment. It’s sickening that she dares to open her lying, hypocritical mouth, and doubly sickening that she is allowed to do it on television. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.