Two of a Kind
Once Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate (because Trump broke his last one) people started looking into JD’s past and turns out Vance has changed a lot of his positions and, according to the following article, had publicly called Donald Trump “reprehensible” an “idiot” and privately compared him to Hitler.
In 2016 in a private message on Facebook, Vance wrote: "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler."
Which I think is hard proof that “private” messages on social media aren’t really all that private and you should never write or say anything you wouldn’t want repeated to the person you were talking about, so maybe lay off calling your boss a “bitch on wheels” or your brother-in-law an “an Olympics-level horse’s ass” unless you’re ready to retire or need some provocative conversation material for next Thanksgiving’s dinner.
Republicans have defended Vance by saying his views have “evolved” and you gotta give JD credit because “America’s Hitler” to “America’s Savior” in eight years is some pretty fast evolving.
An associate professor of politics at the University of Cincinnati named David Niven (who I’m guessing is sick to death of Errol Flynn and Around the World in 80 Days jokes) had a different explanation for JD’s change of heart and said:
“What you see is some really profound opportunism.”
When opponents dug up those statements by Vance they acted like it was a “gotcha” moment, but I wondered why they thought being an opportunist who would say absolutely anything as long as it would benefit him personally would disqualify him from being Trump’s running mate.
And Now a Completely Unnecessary, But Hopefully Entertaining David Niven Sidebar
David Niven was one of my favorite celebrities because he’s a great reminder that while you can’t always control what happens to you, it is at least theoretically possible to control your reactions.
And now a famous story you should hear now if you haven’t already:
Niven was a Hollywood extra with a knack for being likeable and making friends and during a trip to a steam bath that involved Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and movie producer Darryl F. Zanuck, Fairbanks asked Niven how he planned to spend the winter: playing polo or lounging around on his yacht.
Which was a joke because Fairbanks knew Niven was flat broke.
But Zanuck overheard the conversation and asked if Niven really played polo because Zanuck needed more players for an upcoming chukker (or maybe it was an upchucking comer because Hollywood was pretty wild in those days) and Fairbanks claimed Niven played polo for the British army.
Which was news to Niven.
Nevertheless, Niven was invited to play and given a horse prone to biting anyone who came within reach and at one point the unknown Hollywood extra Niven was chasing the very well-known Hollywood producer Zanuck when Niven’s horse reached out and bit the well-known Hollywood producer in the ass.
Meanwhile…
Niven took a wild swing at the ball and on his follow through managed to lodge his polo mallet “under the tail” of Zanuck’s horse, which sounds like a polite way of saying David Niven stuck a polo mallet up Darryl Zanuck’s horse’s ass and after that polo match everybody in Hollywood knew who David Niven was.
I wasn’t there so I don’t know for sure, but while many of us would be appalled and mortified, I’m guessing Niven was charming and funny about the whole thing because those seemed to be his factory settings.
For instance:
During World War II Niven went back to Britain to serve in the military and became the leader of a group of commandos and right before leading them into action tried to calm them down by saying: “Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn.”
During the Battle of the Bulge when a nervous American sentry challenged Niven by asking him who won the 1943 World Series, Niven said: “Haven’t the foggiest idea, but I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother.”
And in 1974 while Niven was co-hosting the Oscars, a male streaker appeared behind him and Niven reacted by saying: "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"
If you want to see Niven tell the polo pony story, here you go:
Niven’s Wikipedia entry says he was prone to exaggeration when telling his stories (my former girlfriend Loretta Young denies this) so believe what you want, but it’s undeniable that, at least on the surface, Niven dealt with Life’s Ups and Downs – and occasional moves Sideways – with charm and humor and if you’re looking for a role model on how to behave in public you could do a lot worse.
Last week while appearing in front of a group of Christians, Donald Trump gave one of his more bizarre campaign speeches ever, which given Trump’s Bizarre Campaign Speech Track Record, is saying quite a lot.
Among other things, Trump said:
“Christians get out and vote. Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians."
Having a candidate who doesn’t care about rules or laws or inconvenient documents like the U.S. Constitution promise that if you make him president you won’t ever have to vote again is somewhat worrisome.
People immediately started trying to figure out just exactly what Trump meant by “you won’t have to vote anymore” and I drew one of the possibilities.
And speaking of bizarre campaign promises:
After Israel attacked Hezbollah (or maybe it was the other way around, it’s easy to lose track) Donald Trump blamed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris because they’re weak leaders and said it never would have happened if he was president.
Conflict in the Middle East seems like a pretty regular occurrence no matter who the President of the United States is, so I drew Trump claiming he could control the inevitable.
So they decide to hold the swimming part of the Olympic triathlon in the Seine River which has been considered un-swimmable for the past 100 years because it’s too polluted and part of that pollution is E. coli bacteria which is an “indicator of fecal matter.”
That being the case, they spent $1.5 billion to clean up the Seine and to prove just how safe it is, the mayor of Paris – Anne Hidalgo – went for a dip which in my opinion proved absolutely nothing because if you’re the mayor of Paris you’re probably accustomed to swimming in shit.
As you may have already noticed politicians often live extremely long lives because after eating a lifetime supply of shit sandwiches they have the immune system of Methusela.
But even after the $1.5 billion cleanup, the Olympic triathlon had to be postponed until the E.coli levels came down to “acceptable” levels which they eventually did (supposedly) so they held the swimming part of the men’s and women’s triathlon in the Seine which seems a lot like holding them in a toilet bowl, but assuring the athletes the toilet’s recently been flushed.
The Trump Campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that argued money raised for the Biden Campaign can’t be used for the Harris Campaign because as the cartoon points out, we all know just how serious Donald Trump is about obeying the law.
If you want to read more about this, here you go:
Fact check: Can Kamala Harris access Biden campaign money? : NPR
Just in case you didn’t read the article and odds are excellent you didn’t:
Some “right-leaning” campaign finance lawyers argue that it’s an extremely complicated issue and it could take years to settle (and the article points out there are still open complaints to the FEC from 2016) but Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat and vice-chair of the FEC said:
“It doesn’t look that complicated to me.”
Mostly because Kamala’s name was always on the statement of organization for the Biden presidential campaign committee as one of the candidates people were contributing to.
So if it’s pretty clear that Kamala has legal access to the money and FEC is going to take forever to rule on it anyway and she’s going to be able to use the money during the 2024 campaign, why file the complaint?
Because it’s just one more bucket of mud they can sling in her direction.
Today’s Lesson
Don’t say anything in “private” messages on Facebook you wouldn’t want repeated on CNN, don’t swim in a river of crap just because a politician assures you it’s safe and when things inevitably go wrong, ask yourself WWDND? — What Would David Niven Do? — and behave accordingly.
And apparently David Niven would wish you a nice weekend and then go for a walk because I’m going to do both.
P.S. This last photo of Niven is similar to the first photo and for a second I thought they must be part of the same photo shoot until I noticed the tuxedo ties were different so apparently David didn’t mind dressing to the nines and then having a cocktail (Niven and Errol Flynn shared a beach house they called “Cirrhosis by the Sea”) and at about 3 PM this afternoon I’m going to once again do my best emulate David Niven even if I don’t own a tuxedo.