Frozen in the Past

I love how Democrats and even at least some of the media are getting ahead of the story, and laying the groundwork for undermining whatever “Big News” Trump says he’s going to announce on his address to the nation on Thursday.  No one knows exactly what it is, of course, but based on what little is known, there is evidence it will deal with the subject that has most obsessed Trump’s frazzled mind for six years – which he just…can’t…help…himself from talking about: that he is unable to accept he lost the race in 2020 and that, despite zero actual evidence, he wants everyone to believe with him that the election was rigged.  And he is unable to move on past it.

Trump is so frozen in the past about the 2020 election that Birdseye might sue for trademark infringement.

What’s uncertain is the direction his “Big News” will take.  The main guess is that he’ll finally have a boogeyman to point to, which will be China.  Now, yes, there is evidence that China wanted to influence the election – there just isn’t any evidence that it did.  Other options for Trump is that he’ll point (again) to Venezuela supposedly rigging voting machines.  Or Italy putting bamboo chips in paper ballots.  And then there’s always, of course, Georgia – and that Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Osoff were elected illegally.  Not that anyone else on the ballot got manipulated (other than him), just those two.  Somehow.  Despite the lack of any actual, admissible evidence. 

All of which he keeps trying to use as reason for the passing of his voter suppression SAVE Act.  Because he just…can’t…help…himself from talking about losing.

There was an excellent and long discussion about all this yesterday on MSNOW.  Their panel was scathing against these expectations of Trump’s speech – former DOJ prosecutor Glenn Thrush, conservative George Conway, political operative Mark McKinnon and Greg Bluestein, a Georgia political reporter.  All going into meticulous detail on how all the far-right conspiracy theories have been debunked.  Several even explaining how Trump’s speech could backfire on him and the party, since so much of the public has grown weary of hearing Trump obsessing over this for six years and have themselves long-since moved on.  As Conway described it, and the others agreed, Trump won’t be talking to the country on Thursday, he’ll be talking into a mirror.  Because he just…can’t…help…himself from talking about it.

And all of those on the panel raved about Jon Ossoff’s brief press conference,

And deservedly so.  Sen. Ossoff was blistering.  (And if Democrats do get an official response on TV after Trump’s address, he should do it.)  His statement was brief, very focused and to the point, and tying together Trump’s obsession with 2020, his fear of losing control of Congress in the Mid-Terms, his long-held desperation to stay in office and (perhaps most strongly by Ossoff)   tying it all together with Trump’s massive financial corruption which has come at the expense of the public’s struggles with tariff, high consumer prices, soaring gas prices and affordability.

My favorite comment in the press conference came when asked how he’d respond to any of his Senate colleagues who agree with Trump about the 2020 election being rigged.  I knew what I hoped he would say – and he did.  He replied, “I don’t know of Republican colleagues who agree with the president on this.  Privately, most Republicans in this building think the president has lost it and is dooming them to dismal losses this fall.”

Here’s his full statement and Q&A’s, all of which only takes 4-1/2 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT-eGo9CPww

They were blunt on CNN, as well, where Daniel Dale noted that Trump’s speech is happening when "we're approaching six years of him lying that he won” in 2020, adding that "No such proof has emerged. He's even started saying that he is in his third term as president. So, he's inventing an imaginary and unconstitutional victory."  And Jeff Duncan, former lieutenant governor of Georgia, told host Jake Tapper that Trump's 2020 election comments could come back to bite Republicans in the midterms. "I can assure you, most Republicans, especially those that are on the ballot, not only in Georgia but across the country, do not want Donald Trump rehashing the 2020 election.”

​The thing is, something that hasn’t really gotten mentioned much (if it all) if this these attacks are Trump’s “Big News” on Thursdays, it really, truly doesn’t have anything to do with the SAVE Act.  Nothing.  Zero.  The SAVE Act is ostensibly concerned with supposed non-citizens voting, contrary (as always) to all evidence.  Any attempt by Trump to point at China is another matter entirely.  The same as any reference to Venezuela or China, or any outside foreign interference.  All of that is and related to national security and concerns tech safeguards, two areas which Trump literally cut back  -- and in some cases, actually eliminated.  Starting with that in 2020 after the election he fired Chris Krebs who had been in charge of tech security and told Trump that the safeguards worked and there was no rigging.  Indeed he was also told by his Attorney General Bill Barr that there was no rigging of the election.

But Trump wouldn’t hear that.  Because he couldn’t hear it.  Physically, mentally, emotionally.  Absolutely unable to accept he could lose, at anything, but most especially this.  And so for six years, obsessively, it’s been tearing him up inside and he’s kept talking and talking and talking about it.  Because…oh, you know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVVTZgwYwVo

Man of Music

As I mentioned a while back, the 1987 Tony Awards for Broadway was particularly wonderful.  Not just for the musicals that were nominated (including the winner, Les Miserables) and the great, extended scenes from Best Play nominees with wonderful actors (including James Earl Jones, who won the Tony that year as Best Actor, and Courtney B. Vance in Fences, Alan Rickman in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a very young Annette Bening in Coastal Disturbances, and that year’s Tony-winner for Best Actress Linda Lavin and Jonathan Silverman in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound), but the broadcast included some wonderful special features.

And at the top of that list, I think was one in particular.  Every year, awards shows always have an “In Memoriam” segment of those who passed away during the previous year, showing one-second snippets of each person.  But for the 1987 Tonys, they singled out one person for a long, individual tribute.  Robert Preston.  And when I say “long,” I mean it was a full 11 minutes!  It was terrific, though somewhat surprising because – as much as I loved Robert Preston’s work – he only appeared in four musicals on Broadway.  And only one, The Music Man, was a major hit.  He won a second Best Actor Tony for I Do! I Do!, though it was a modest success.  And Mack and Mable and Ben Franklin in Paris were unsuccessful.  In fairness, and it’s no small thing, he also appeared in a dozen plays, most notably starring in the original production of A Lion in Winter as ‘Henry II.”  So, he did have a long Broadway career.  But then, many performers have had long careers on Broadway – probably longer, and I’m not aware of many, or any, getting an 11-minute standalone tribute.  Still, though, not every performer has a “The Music Man” in their portfolio, and his ‘Prof. Harold Hill’ was such a visceral performance and success that that seems (deservedly) to have transcend it all. 

I’m not complaining at all, mind you.  I loved Robert Preston’s work.  I loved that they did such a wonderful tribute.  Just very surprised the Tonys did this.  Ultimately, the point was for the Tonys to present a posthumous lifetime achievement award.  But that could be done without such a long, elaborate production number.  Or, in fact, any production number, which is generally the case when the Tonys have given such an award, and almost always when the person was alive.  But, to be very clear, I’m very glad they did it.  And did it so well.  Just surprised.

Which brings us to the tribute.  In her introduction, Angela Lansbury mentions two of Preston’s co-stars who perform songs from the shows they starred in with him – Bernadette Peters in Mack and Mabel (the Jerry Herman show about famed silent movie producer/director Mack Sennett and star Mabel Normand) and most notably, Barbara Cook, the original ‘Marian the Librarian’ in The Music Man.  (So notable that when she gets only three notes into “’Til There Was You,” the audience breaks into applause.)

But there are a few more surprises in the tribute, which Lansbury doesn’t mention, and I’ll leave that out, as well.  It’s a nice surprise, which then turns even nicer.  And there’s a sweet button at the end of it all.

Here then is that 11-minute tribute to Robert Preston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAktHIJ4g0g

The Daily Stewart This Week

If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show last night, he Main Story was on the age of so many members of Congress.  And he did what would almost seem impossible, he made the death of Lindsey Graham hilarious without being disrespectful or even critical of Graham.  How we managed that is a masterclass in comedy.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH-yAy8_yB4