By Kevin D. Williamson
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Thank you all for being here. It is weird not to have the
frontrunner here, of course. But, then, it’s a little weird that the
frontrunner is the guy who lost last time around and then tried to overthrow
the government.
Which brings us to our first question: Who won the 2020
presidential election?
I’d like to remind you that those electrodes attached to
your … are we allowed to say that on television? … are hooked
up to our state-of-the-art Acme B.S. Detector. And thanks to our sponsors at
Acme B.S. Detectors! On the other side of that circuit is a Duralast Platinum
AGM Battery boasting 750 cold-cranking amps—and thanks to our other sponsors at
AutoZone! You know the drill: We have Mitch Daniels standing by with the
controls in hand, and, if you try to wholesale the kind of bull you normally
feed gullible Republican primary voters and fawning Fox News types to our
audience, then it is ZAP! right in the ’nads.
Mrs. Haley? Are you leaving? No, I’m not going to call
you “governor” when you haven’t been a governor in more than half a decade, and
everybody knows you are running for vice president but are going to end up
secretary of education at best. All right, good luck. Well, that saves some
time. Could someone grab her lavalier before she goes? We don’t want to lose
our deposit.
***
Okay, next question.
The
vast majority of federal spending consists of popular entitlements
such as Social Security and Medicare, national defense, and interest on the
debt. We could cut SNAP, means-tested welfare payments, and foreign aid to
$0.00 and not even eliminate the annual deficit. So, a multiple-choice
question. Should we:
a)
Cut spending on national security and popular
entitlement programs?
b)
Raise taxes?
c)
A and B?
d)
Run deficits pretty much forever until there’s a
fiscal crisis precipitating national, and, in all likelihood, worldwide
economic collapse, because you are too cowardly to do anything hard?
I’d like to remind you that we have added a second
battery to the array—and thanks once again to AutoZone!—so, if you are thinking
about pretending that cutting aid to Ukraine is going to balance the budget,
well, you know: your body, your choice.
Hey, did we wire those in parallel or in series?
***
Gov. DeSantis, you’ve said, in your vague way, that you
want to cut federal spending while keeping taxes low. Fair enough. But, you
haven’t said what spending you want to cut, and, for the
record, I’ll note that you signed into law Florida’s biggest-spending
government budget—ever. Without using the words “waste,” “fraud,’ or
“abuse,” what would you like to see actually cut? And, assuming you’re still
able to speak after trying to answer that question, a follow-up: How do you
plan to get Congress, which actually writes the tax laws and appropriates the
money, to go along with you, given that Democrats control the Senate and may
very well control one or both houses of Congress at some point during your
hypothetical presidency?
Is he going to be okay? Does it smell just a little weird in
here to anybody else?
***
Mr. Pence, when the administration in which you served
attempted to overturn the 2020 election in a coup d’état under
color of law, you did your constitutional duty and certified the electors. And
for about 48 hours, you were pretty critical of Donald Trump. Well done! By my
calculation, that means you conducted yourself honorably for about 0.14 percent
of the four years in question with the guy you now call your “former running
mate.” Don’t you think there should be a kind of time-out or something? I know
you’re an evangelical, but you are also a baptized Catholic. Couldn’t you—shouldn’t you—go
to a monastery for like 20 years or something?
***
I’d like to thank our sponsors at Honda Power Equipment
for providing this terrific 7,000-watt 120/240V inverter
generator! Let’s get that thing hooked up. Now, who wants to talk about foreign
policy? Remember, if you’re blowing smoke, Mitch knows.
Just got real, didn’t it?
Was that … parkour? Did anybody tell Vivek Ramaswamy that
that is a second-story window?
***
No, I’m not going to ask Gov. Burgum if his hair
technically qualifies as a mullet. Do I look like a guy who cares
much about haircuts? No more questions from the app formerly known as Twitter,
damn it.
***
Well, yeah, Gov. DeSantis, everything would
be a lot easier if we had 3 percent real GDP growth year after year after year.
Do you know when that last happened consistently? Not in the Trump
administration. Not in the Obama administration. Not really in the George W.
Bush administration. It goes up and down.
I know you know this. If “let there be 3-or-4-percent growth forever” were a
policy, somebody would already have enacted it.
Hit him, Mitch.
***
All right, you are allowed to consult your notes on this
one. Ranked from most persuasive to least persuasive, how would you rate the
felony indictments Donald Trump currently is under?
No, Sen. Scott, you may not be excused to go to the
bathroom.
***
Okay, so let me get this straight: If police shoot Walter
Scott in the back, it’s Walter Scott’s fault, somehow, and cops have a
really hard job. But if a “patriot” is barricaded in his house pointing a rifle
at federal agents there to serve a lawful arrest warrant and somebody
gets dead, that is … Chris Wray’s fault? Help me understand this one.
You know what? Don’t help me understand that one.
Question: Who appointed Chris Wray? Remind me again?
Hit him, Mitch.
***
Anybody having any second thoughts about “unleashing
American energy”? Because, to be entirely honest, I’m truly, truly
enjoying unleashing American energy on you people.
***
Okay, last question goes to Chris Christie. Why? Because
there’s nobody else on stage, that’s why.
Let me read something to you:
“I am proud to be here to endorse Donald Trump for
president of the United States. I’m happy to be on the Trump team, and I look
forward to working with him.” That’s you
in 2016. On a scale of zero to 10, zero being metaphysical
impossibility and 10 being absolute metaphysical certitude,
how likely are you to be repeating those words, or saying words to that effect
after Trump locks up the GOP nomination this time around?
Remember, this isn’t a second-grade self-esteem exercise:
There are wrong answers.
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