Mark Twain

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Thursday, October 11, 2018

The Words of Charles P. Pierce

I don't know how many of you watched the recent Senate hearings in the confirmation process for the new Supreme Court Justice.  The interviews and the resulting outcome was so discouraging and sad that I thought to avoid any mention on my blog.  This is not a political blog, after all,  and I don't want to offend readers whose opinions are different from mine.

But then I read the words of Charles P. Pierce on Facebook.  

Those words are worth repeating here.
  I hope you feel they are worth reading.

I must warn you ... it won't make you feel any better!

"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.
The scion of a multi-generational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now." ~Charles P. Pierce

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I couldn't have expressed this better, Mr. Pierce.

Per Wikipedia
Charles Patrick Pierce[1] (born December 28, 1953) is an American sportswriterpolitical bloggerliberal pundit[2] author, and game show panelist.[3]

5 comments:

Theresa said...

Thank you. I had not read this piece.

SusieCraft said...

I had not read it either. Thank you Elaine. All we can do is to make sure that each one of us VOTES in this coming election. All I hold on to is that our country has survived so much and survived and we will survive this man and these buffoons who despise women so.

Marie Smith said...

As a survivor, I believe the good Dr. I’ve been sad since this hearing and it isn’t even in my country!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this post. I am printing and posting it on my fridge. Please keep commenting on current events even though this is a sewing/loom blog. I had a minister once who gave a sermon on his personal politics and many in the congregation were appalled and uncomfortable (he was an interim pastor so he knew he was only there for a short time), but I will never forget that he said his politics and his personal beliefs and his religion were entwined so why not say something out loud?? It took guts. Thanks again.

Laurie Mann said...

Excellent piece by Charles Pierce. We're about the same age, and I have pretty much the same memories, though I was also quite worried about Bush/Cheney's nearness to developing an autocracy.