Did you forget his birthday too? So uneventfully it passed last Monday. It made nobody’s headlines. No one sang him Happy Birthday or played him a swinging song like the Beatles’ “Birthday” or the classic sad one from the Tune Weavers, “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby.”
Not that he didn’t attempt some birthday reachout. At his press conference a week ago he scolded reporters for not wishing him a happy birthday ahead of time, and his operatives and goons launched a major offensive of tweets and warnings to those who’d not yet signed the people’s birthday card to el presidente. As he had reminded his audience on Friday, “we tortured some folks.” Now Looney Tunes is going to have to revise its signature signoff — how does “That’s All, Suckers!” sound? — as “folks” goes the way of “gay.” Anyway, it was dying of presidential overuse.
Will a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard improve his mood? We’re not so sure. Yesterday the White House confirmed that its current occupant is all set to spend a lovely few weeks on the Isle of Privilege. (Beach hat tip to Jim Geraghty.) And in a pretty swank beach hut, a $7.6 million spread on 9.5. acres that includes basketball and tennis courts, a fancy swimming pool for Joe Biden and other Irish setters, ocean views from every conceivable spot — but no golf course. Some major fundraising is being thrown in, all in order to make the getaway affordable. But it still falls short of the standard European four-week package. Who says we’ve gone socialist?
Sen. John Walsh, whose writing talents came to our attention a few weeks ago, has withdrawn from this year’s Senate race in Montana. It took awhile, but as an officer and a gentleman he now takes “full responsibility” for his dubious scrivening. It’s not clear whom Democrats will choose to replace him on the ballot. The New York Times seems to be pulling for Nancy Keenan, “a former head of Pro-Choice America.” That would take the cake: a Feminazi sticking it to the Montana Militia. We were hoping for someone more in tune with the historical moment: Robert Torricelli, say, or rising star Rick Perlstein.
The Washington Redskins played their first pre-season game last night, and from all accounts they never fumbled their name or had it stripped by someone from the opposing side. Reporting on their 23-6 win, ESPN even dared to call them the Redskins, repeating the name 13 times in its postgame recap. Which is 13 times more than Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise managed to do in his column on the team a few days earlier.
It was a rather scary performance by the deranged Orwellian. He even changed quotes to avoid mention of the dread name, as in this one from an op-ed by a Virginia House delegate, who’d written, “For generations, the Redskins have been Virginia’s team, even the South’s team’’—except Wise scalped the “Redskins” mention in favor of “[R-Words].” It bothers Wise to no tight end that the Redskins train in Richmond and are Virginia’s favorite team. So not only is their name unacceptable but also their popularity in a Southern state where Wise saw “a monstrous Confederate flag flying in Stafford County.” Before you know it, he fell on this deep insight: “It’s not a coincidence their training camp is now in the former capital of the Confederacy.”
Soon enough, his colleagues took the hysteria further. Post columnist Sir Robert McCartney cut loose with this headline: “Confederate battle flag, like Nazi swastika, is offensive emblem of hateful cause.” A gleeful Dana Milbank did his part with “Battle Cry of the White Man.” Our only conclusion: These libs have been playing liberalism too long without a helmet. Fellas, the Civil War ended 149 years ago, in Virginia, as it happens. Will it calm nerves if we change the state’s name instead? To Virginius, say. It might bring that Pro-Choice American woman in Montana out of hiding. But no doubt she’d soon join forces with Mike Wise, who she’ll discover is no Solomon. What lousy Enemy of the Week is?
