"Cruelty is not wit"

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," said Martin Luther King, Jr., by way of heartening people who thought they would never see any.  Barack Obama loved it and had it woven into a rug which, I'm guessing, no longer adorns the Oval Office.   These days we use it as comfort food to get over the latest outrage to decency -- another dead child in a border concentration camp, another attack on a synagogue, another bigot enthroned for life on a federal bench.  It's our abbreviated "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and we wish the arc were shorter, the bend more pronounced.

There are days, however, that make you think maybe you can hear it curving this way.  Yes, impeachment was inevitable, I'm not talking about that.  As I have said, I fear this is just another House bill doomed to die in the Senate.  But here and there the terrible swift sword comes down hard and the results are glorious.  Like most people who don't live in Denver I had never heard of Chuck Bonniwell, apparently a famed local limbaugh.  Yesterday on "Chuck & Julie" he expressed boredom with the impeachment debate and added, "You wish for a nice school shooting to interrupt."  He was reprimanded by co-host Julie, who is also his wife, but appalled listeners were already calling KNUS, which today fired his sorry ass. (Exactly what the House is trying to do to Trump, who has said and done far worse.)  Now Chuck can have a second career whining to Tucker Carlson and Bill Maher about how political correctness destroyed his first career.

Trump chose Battle Creek, Michigan, as the venue for his first post-impeachment hate rally, and it did not go well.  The usual mob of ravening red-caps turned out but so did a sufficient number of people to hold up a large banner reading "DON THE CON, YOU'RE FIRED!"  They were of course removed -- no free speech at a Trump event -- but not before one woman showed him a middle finger, eliciting the usual dignified response.  After complaining that security didn't handle her roughly enough, he pronounced her "a real slob" and predicted, "She'll get hell when she gets back home with mom."  Very interesting, as Arte Johnson used to say.  It sounds like Mary Trump was a lot scarier than Fred when it was time to discipline her useless son.

After that things got worse.  Since he was in Michigan Trump decided to attack Rep. Debbie Dingell on her vote for impeachment.  Dingell's husband John represented the district for almost sixty years and died last February.  Trump started out with his usual self-admiring drivel about how moved the widow was when he, Trump, personally allowed flags to be lowered for the longest-serving Congressman in history.  And then the ungrateful bitch votes for that ugly thing impeachment, when clearly she owed him a favor like Bonasera owed Don Corleone.  Then it was time to go after the dead man:  "Maybe he's looking up.  I don't know.  But let's assume he's looking down.  (Repeated.)"

Did you get that?  Trump knows John Dingell is in hell, as surely as he knows what Nancy Pelosi prays for.  I can see why so many simple-minded evangelicals (but I repeat myself) think he's the messiah, or at least The Amazing Kreskin.  Rep. Dingell's response was exemplary:  "I'm preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love...your hurtful words just made my healing much harder."  (Melania Trump, make a note of this.  You'll need to plagiarize it yourself one day.)

Stephanie Grisham appeared in a cloud of red smoke to call Trump a "counterpuncher" bravely defending himself by attacking a dead man -- not John McCain for once.  There were few others who wanted to second his remarks publicly.  Even Rick Santorum, for Cthulu's sake, called them "beyond the pale" because "it will make it that much harder for Republicans to hold onto power."  Eyes on the prize, Rick.  Because after the House vote your guys stood in a "moment of silence" to honor the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump.  Nothing for the 65,844,610 who voted for Hillary Clinton.  Impeachment didn't thwart the will of the people -- at long last, it was upheld.  Go fuck yourselves.

Here are some fuckers who need to fuck themselves:

Barry Loudermilk (R-ACIST):  "Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats have afforded this president."

Fred Keller (R-ATSHIT):  "I'll pray for [Democrats]...'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"

Mike Kelly (R-EPREHENSIBLE):  "On December 7, 1941, a horrific act happened in the United States...Today, December 18, 2019, is another date that will live in infamy..."

Vladimir Putin (R-USSIA):  "Democrats lost the last election, and now they want to win by other means."

Mark Simone (R-EALLY?)  "Everybody should go read that letter, it is a masterpiece.  It's a Gettysburg Address of smearjob, false accusations, what a response.  It's a historical document."

In all honesty, I have no idea who Simone is, but his effortless mixture of incoherence and sycophancy tells me he's probably the next attorney general.  And Smearjob is the name of my new  Messiaen-on-steel-drums ensemble.

Before I go, let me salute Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (?-HI) who showed why she should be president by voting "present" on the most important matter this House will consider.  If only Ted Sorensen were alive, he could slip her into Profiles In Courage right after Lucius Q. Lamar, Confederate general, senator and US Supreme Court Justice.  Some people have a knack for surrounding a question on all sides.