Spotting phonies

Just say no to chameleon candidates!

Are you nervous around black people? (Do you poop out at parties? Well, DO YOU?! — Lucy Ricardo) 

Not in the sense of fearing your purse gets swiped (like that hilarious routine about the elevator). No, my Wonder Breads, you worry your black acquaintance won’t accept you for who you really are, that they can’t see past your guilty white epidermis. That, instead, they blame you for Bull Connors and Nipsey Russell. So you go out of your way to ingratiate. Let drop that you would have marched with Father Groppi back in the day if not for those Grateful Dead tickets.

For demanding discipline in Madison’s K-12 schools, our campaign for school board (WARNING: another war story ahead!) was accused of racism. Were endorsed all the same by a small clutch of black leaders. Decided not to use their names. Didn’t feel like pandering. Never felt the need to ingratiate.

Respect comes from who you are, not how you would like to be seen.

Get off your knees

The fictive Holden Caulfield hated on phonies even more than his creator abjured an identifiable plot line. Holden never met Gavin Newsom. Strikes us as all Carhartt and no motor oil. Pretending to be a victim (albeit of dyslexia) in front of a black audience just grovels! As disgraceful as Nancy & Co. taking the knee for George Floyd.

As the latest phony baloney on the political scene, Jonah Goldberg (today’s Charles Dickens) nominates James Talarico, Democrat(ic) candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas.  

Progressives … love him because he’s essentially a Bernie Bro populist with a Texas twang … Progressive assumptions … rest on the idea that large numbers of Texas voters will overlook ideological and partisan preferences because he can, in the words of Tim Walz, “code-talk” them into voting for things they don’t believe in. — Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch

Exactly why Kamala picked Tampon Tim as her running mate. “He wears flannel! He hunts!” Goldberg quotes Walz himself: “I could code-talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck. I was the permission structure to say, ‘Look, you can do this and vote for this.’”

Talarico, Goldberg observes, “believes there are six sexes. He’s resolutely pro-choice. … He’s for a kind of watered-down version of Medicare for All.” A tidier version of Jasmine Crockett, the wild woman he defeated.

Bernie in the barn

Wisconsin’s most egregious political poseur is Rebecca Cooke, the professional Democrat again challenging Derrick Van Orden in the Eau Claire/La Crosse congressional district. Mizz Cooke trudges through buckets of barnyard manure in her futile play for authenticity. She’s just your everyday farmer’s daughter turned waitress, driving a broken-down car like all you po’ folk beaten down by Trumponomics.

Skips the parts about being a paid political gun for hire in four states; endorsed by that New York farm boy Zohran Mamdani; frontman for George Soros; rallying with Bernie Sanders. She is a pet project of John Nichols of The Nation and the defund-the-police Capital Times. 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Ask Mizz Cooke to fire the DEI hall monitors, talk back to the teachers union, kick boys out of the girls’ room, defend the border, back the badge, or cut taxes. Ask her if one could slip a dollar bill between her platform and that of Squad auxiliary member Mark Pocan.

At least Derrick Van Orden (did you know he was a Navy Seal?) doesn’t pretend to be warm & fuzzy.

Is that Donald Trump’s secret sauce, too?