The legend of Sean Spicer spreads. Like everyone, we remember the hard job he found himself in, his lack of skill in performing it, the daily humiliations not to mention the fetishistic treatment he received at SNL from one of the show’s friendlier crossdressers. But the final insult came when he was left out of a visit to the Vatican — that one hit too close to home, an ultimate dirty slap from the master he had served so selflessly.
So the other night he got his revenge, and if revenge is sweet how come it tasted like kimchi? The Emmy audience now hates him more than ever, and whatever religious scruples he might have had have acquired a Luciferian quality. Where does a man who has lost his soul for good go to find a new one? We hear Lady Hillary is looking for someone to help her with her next book, What Happened With What Happened. Gluttony for punishment is the only job qualification listed. He better hurry, lest the SNL crossdresser beat him to it.
We’d be happy to give you a full rundown of the rats that infested Sunday’s Emmy gala, but you know how it is: you see one rat and you’ve seen them all. And unlike birds, say, the male rat and the female rat are interchangeable. So whether it’s Colbert or Dreyfuss or Baldwin or lots more we’ve never watched let alone heard of, what difference does it make to catalogue their latest mouthings and who was the rattiest of them all. In their sewer world, they all smell the same, and by all accounts they couldn’t be more pleased with themselves. “Hurray for Hollywood” sounded better when smog was its only unpleasant pollutant.
Fortunately, at Enemy Central we are not primarily creatures of vision or smell. It matters more what we hear or read. Or in the case of the fallen oligarch Mr. Manafort, what they were hearing as they listened in on him, well before the predawn raid on his domicile that would have been more appropriate in the country they suspected of working in cahoots with him to overthrow our Kremlin and to topple the Washington Monument while they were at it, well ahead of the current trend to topple other monuments before it ultimately will be the capital’s towering obelisk’s turn.
Of course, don’t expect to hear anything about any of this from the folks who follow Sean Spicer. Or who haven’t had much to say about the rioting in St. Louis, or the violent antics of Antifa. There is currently a certain confusion about these things, and what the approved approach might be. It appears Mr. Trump’s rapprochement with the Schumer-Pelosi wing of Impeachment Central has caused many a progressive wire to get crossed and lose its spark. So what is going on? Stay tuned, you say? It’s hard to when the wires aren’t working.
So at present they need to take it one day at a time, as we are doing as we peruse the columnizing of a few of their old guard. A column by the creaky Walter Shapiro caught our attention: “Dancing With the Democrats Will Not Save Trump,” he harrumphs. Why? Because Trump a “reprehensible president.” There’s his “uncontrollable mendacity.” His “vicious personal attacks” (does he mean the vicious attacks on him?). His “hot-tempered tweets.” His “contempt for ethics.” You know the drill. Walter is not about to be charmed, saying he’d loathe the guy even if he had bamboozled the Democrats instead in 2016 and won the presidency as one of them. Again, that’s why Obamacare provides for psychiatric care.
Which leaves us with a difference sort of unbalanced hatred: that emanating from a New York Times columnist who found himself frothing when Mr. Trump on September 11 led tributes at the Pentagon to those who perished on that date 16 years ago now. The Twin Towers crumbled, so who does Roger Cohen compare him to? Humpty Dumpty, and Cohen actually preferred Humpty to Trump (at least he didn’t call him Trumpty). When Humpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less,” Cohen writes, “At least Humpty Dumpty said it without that repetitive thumb-to-stubby-forefinger gesture of our esteemed leader.” Such revulsion, my, my — what’s wrong with having a stubby forefinger, if that’s what he has. As noted, we’re not big on the visual. But Cohen can’t be stopped. Next thing you know, he’s decrying Trump’s “head turning jerkily, like an old electric fan, from teleprompter to teleprompter…” Sounds to us, he’s been reading too much Peggy Noonan. Regardless, he’s got EOW written all over him. The generation that once sang “Love Is All You Need” has settled for fear and loathing and living the empty — Dumpty — life. More or less.