The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! Geez, how many times did we hear that chant by Trump and the GOP about Hillary’s role in Libya as Sec. of State? A million? Or more? Followed by Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up! She voluntarily sat for Congressional investigations for ten hours, patiently answering questions by hostile interrogators who assumed that using a personal server for her phone was tantamount to treason. And in the end it was all a tempest in a teapot, no charges to file, no apologies forthcoming. And those emails? Well, it cost her the election when James Comey who headed up the FBI opened up a new investigation right before the time to vote. Thanks, Jim. Job well done.

Now that we know the Prez-in –Exile used his own cellphone, destroyed logs and memos, calendars and meeting notes, where are those outraged Senators and Representatives crying Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up! The worm has turned but those worms haven’t. Hypocrisy seems to be the modus operandi of the day. Meanwhile the war drums keep pounding in Ukraine. Remember Ukraine? Donald told them he would withhold military aid unless they uncovered dirt on Biden’s boy, a quid pro quo that should have resulted in an easy case for impeachment but was thwarted a second time. You might think an omelette could be made from all those eggs on shameless faces but you’d be wrong. Russia may or may not be preparing to attack Ukraine — if they do, will anyone think back to Trump’s personal snit fit while the stakes have become incredibly high? If you think so, go to the back of the line.

The Teflon Trump may or may not get away with shredding and flushing evidence in what will no doubt become Toiletgate. Maybe only history will judge the man guilty, but unless you’ve been hiding in a fallout shelter these past years, you’ve been witness to a White House that ignores the law, flaunts morals, repeatedly lies, monetizes the office, rants and raves and threatens perceived enemies in a way that makes Richard Nixon look like a choir boy. Russia, if you’re listening, find his emails.

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Suppose the Nazis came to your state for a rally. You remember the Nazis, right? Swastika waving skinheads who hate, well, everybody but white folks. And some white folks too. Gays, liberals, Jews, scum like that. And suppose the governor of your state came out and instead of denouncing this hate-group rally of Holocaust deniers, claimed instead that it was a stunt by the Democratic Party to embarrass him. Well, this is Florida and maybe your governor would rise to the occasion, not dig a deeper hole in his political basement.

These are the times we live in. Trump came out this weekend at a rally to promise that if he were elected once again or the Congress flipped GOP, he’d pardon all those patriots who trashed the Capitol and screamed for Pence and Pelosi’s heads. The Commission to investigate the assault on the Capitol, he heatedly suggested, should look into the crimes of Pence and Pelosi. Then he claimed the Georgia folks looking into his so-called attempt to overturn the election results were really racist prosecutors . Needless to say the Prosecutor has asked the FBI for protection from potential harm from patriots motivated by this kind of accusation.

This would be sadly humorous coming from a man who is under assault from so many legal suits you can hardly keep up with them if it weren’t for the fact most of the Republicans in Congress seem willing to either ignore this stuff or else repeat it as truth. Stolen election, tampered ballot boxes, dead zombies voting, witch hunt witch hunt fake news witch hunt. And you thought it couldn’t happen here in the Yew Ess Aye. Well, it’s happening.

I thought Trump was a piece of work, a fluke who parlayed fame from a dopey reality TV show into a desk at the Oval Office. I figured he flim-flammed a lot of folks into believing he was a savvy businessman, a carnival barker with an ego the size of Mt. Rushmore. What I never believed was a whole lot of folks out there in the purpled majesty were just waiting for a bigot to roll out the red carpet for them to say and act what they’ve kept a little quiet in this oppressive political correctness that asks that we respect one another. You don’t respect people you hate. No telling if you might do what you always wanted to do. Just wait for the word. Just hope for Trump or another one like him. Yeah, it gives me the creeps.

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As most of you careful readers know, political correctness down here on the partisan shores of the steamy equatorial South End is probably not one of our more valued virtues. Maybe because we’re all trapped down at this skinny dead end backwash cul-de-sac, we’ve learned — the hard way usually —- that if we want to get along without civil war, we have to disagree without resorting to a full blown arms race. And believe me, we disagree. On most everything. That’s why we all ended up down here at the end of a tilting island at the end of America on the edge of a continental shelf sliding herky-jerky under another tectonic plate.

This week the talk down at Jolene’s Beauty Salon and Boutique revolved exclusively around the passage of the same sex marriage bill. Scissors and tongues snipped and clucked, but Jolene says no blood was spilled. Ronald, her frothy new beautician, might have intentionally miscolored Mrs. Adeline’s silver perm a tad on the electric blue side when she made the comment that ‘gayness’, seemed to her, was a lifestyle choice, but mostly the banter was affable.

Rhonda Wilkins did wonder out loud if the bill’s passage meant she and her no-account husband Tom’s opposite sex marriage would be annulled now. “That’s wistful thinking,” Wanda blurted from two chairs away in the middle of a henna touch-up on the minister’s mizzus who steadfastly refused to be drawn into a curling iron showdown, and if Rhonda hadn’t been curled herself and heat-lamped into her chair, she might have stormed out, but by the end of the drying cycle she was cooled down and still unhappily married to the love of her life whose zenith of ambition was to reach retirement before cirrhosis.

So Valentine’s Day on the metrosexual South End this year promises to be a cross between Mardi Gras and a Pink St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe no parades by the Diner, but a lot of closets opened for an early spring cleaning. Believe me, the South End could always stand a little more love…. And just in case Mrs. Adeline is right, some of us should think about renewing those old marriage vows. On the outside chance there really might be a statute of limitation.

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It is only rarely that I agree with our President-in-Exile but when I heard that one of his tactics to dispose of presidential memos, meeting records, calendars, love letters from his Korean buddy and anything else that might be used as evidence to indict him for various and sundry crimes, was to flush them down the executive toilet until a call to Roto-Rooter was necessary to unplug the paper mess that had clogged the royal crapper, I thought how appropriate. Better than saving them for the National Archives or the very empty Donald J. Trump Library. Good call, Mr. MAGA!

Folks are taping together some of the ripped up documents down at Mar-a-Lago for a return to the Archives after a summons for their retrieval. Undoubtedly no one will attempt a sewer search and we can say goodbye to the documents that were burned. Worst case: we can let historians piece together the shredded legacy of the Trump Presidency. Or hopefully let the Justice Department sort out the crimes.

The days of secret recordings in the Oval Office probably ended with Nixon and Watergate, the poor guy hoping to burnish his legacy with an audio tape revealing to future generations the profound wisdom of Tricky Dick. Instead it revealed a crooked and paranoid President that even his Republican compatriots abandoned. Trump, well, unless you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid of conspiracy media, you don’t really need tapes or taped together memos to reveal a sinister and criminal thug bent on destroying all evidence that might be used against him in a court of law or the court of public opinion.

The future Trump Library, fittingly enough, should be a simple billboard with the words: CLOSED FOR PLUMBING RENOVATIONS. OPENING DATE UNCERTAIN.

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