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| Tommy Tuberville and the only thing he’s qualified to talk about. |
He’s been credibly charged with fraud (he settled out of court), said some pretty racist things, and declared the three branches of the US government to be the “House, the Senate, and Executive.” In that same interview, he said that his father had fought to World War II “to free Europe of Socialism.” Sigh.
He set up a foundation ostensibly to support veterans, but spent less than 18% of the money on actual charitable causes. Business Insider, hardly a Leninist publication, reported that he had violated the STOCK Act 132 times in a single year.
In short, he’s every curmudgeon’s definition by example of a partisan hack legislator: proudly ignorant, gloriously unqualified, probably corrupt, and dumber than the proverbial box of rocks. Assigning these traits to him is independent of whether Curmie agrees with him on political issues, which happens extremely rarely (but it does happen). Tuberville came to the Senate because he had the good fortune to run in a deep red state that happened to have a Democratic senator because even Alabamans couldn’t bring themselves to elect a dirtbag like Roy Moore.
Tuberville also benefited from the endorsement of Donald Trump in the primary run against Jeff Sessions, who had left the Senate to become Trump’s Attorney General, only to run afoul of his puerile and petulant boss for taking the ethical course of recusing himself from an investigation into allegations of Trump’s collusion with Russia. This is the last time you’re likely to see Curmie link ethics and Jeff Sessions in the same sentence, so enjoy it while you can, Gentle Reader.
Tommy Tuberville is indeed part of the problem. He lowers the intelligence and integrity levels of virtually every room he enters (even the US Senate chamber!), and he’s got a lot more self-importance than competence. Now, of course, he’s single-handedly blocking the process of confirming some 184 military promotions, including the appointment of Shoshana Chatfield as vice admiral and the nation’s military representative to the NATO military committee because he doesn’t like the Pentagon’s new policy allowing leave and reimbursement of some expenses for servicewomen who need to travel to have access to abortions.
Tuberville says the standoff is “not about abortion. It’s not about the Dobbs decision. This is about a tyrannical executive branch walking all over the United States Senate — and doing our jobs.” When a member of the general public whose strong feelings about X and Y have been widely trumpeted says that their objection to a proposal isn’t based on X or Y, but rather about Z, the chances are about 60% that they’re lying. When a politician does it, that number goes up to about 98%. Robert Byrd did exist, though, so there’s always that 2%. Curmie sincerely doubts that Tuberville occupies that space.
But, as noted above, whereas Tuberville is certainly a problem, he isn’t the problem. For one thing, there is the seed, at least, to a legitimate objection in there. Curmie doesn’t necessarily disagree with the DoD’s policy, but one could make a case that unwanted pregnancies are the responsibility of the prospective mother, not of the US government and its tax-payers. Exceptions would have to be made for cases of rape, incest, or significant (in terms of severity and/or likelihood) risk to the mother, but Tuberville appears willing to grant those exemptions, at least in terms of recognizing the legal status quo. Whether allowing exceptions in certain circumstances rather than providing carte blanche availability is the best idea is debatable, but it’s not an outrageous position.
Tuberville may also be right that the executive branch is over-reaching into the prerogatives of the legislature. Curmie is neither a lawyer nor a political scientist; he’s going to avoid taking sides on this one. Calling the Biden administration “tyrannical,” even if they are straying off their own turf, is a little hyperbolic, but that’s just partisan rhetoric, the sort of pol-speak that virtually everyone on both sides of the aisle will engage in when given half an opportunity to do so.
As for whether delaying these promotions will affect the armed forces’ readiness, well, Curmie thinks that anyone paying attention would say, “probably a little, but not much.” Tuberville has said all along that he’d block all high-level nominees if the Pentagon didn’t back off from its position on abortions. Is he behaving like a bratty toddler? Yes. Is his position particularly ironic given his much-ballyhooed support for the military? Yes. But should the DoD and the Biden administration have seen this coming and made backup plans accordingly? Also yes. Interim appointments are a thing, after all.
Moreover, Tuberville didn’t elect himself. His seat is very much the product of a puerile President and a doltish electorate. Georgia barely managed to avoid electing a completely unqualified ex-jock; Alabama did not. It has long been the case that name-recognition will too often prevail over all other factors—that’s how we got Trump vs. Clinton, after all—but we’re getting dangerously close to passing from likelihood into virtual certitude in this area. And that, Gentle Reader, is not a good thing.
More to the point, though, Tuberville is indeed throwing a tantrum over an issue that is, or at least ought to be, irrelevant to the work at hand. Still, the problem isn’t that an ignorant and narcissistic buffoon like Tommy Tuberville is a US Senator: the people of Alabama deserve what they get, even if the rest of us are innocent of that particular transgression. (We Texans have Ted Cruz; we don’t have a lot of room to talk smack.)
No, the problem is that the US Senate is constructed in such a way that a single yahoo from the Senate minority can grind everything to a halt because of a decision that was made by someone other than any of the 184 servicemen and -women whose lives, incomes, and careers are most directly affected. What the hell kind of system is this? Tuberville is a moron and probably a grifter, and he won election in a state that ranks 45th in percentage of college graduates and 47th in overall education.
It’s bad enough when some committee chair or party bigwig decides that partisanship ought to trump (see what Curmie did there?) the national interest. Curmie is looking at you, Mitch McConnell. But Tuberville is a first-term senator from a middling-sized state that would elect a potato if it had an R after its name. His party is in the minority in the Senate. He is the quintessence of back-bencherness. And yet the rest of us get stuck with this pompous jackass’s ability to thwart the stated needs of the military over a fit of pique irrelevant to the qualifications of the nominees. Jolly.
But that’s the system. Curmie gets really pissed off at moments like this, when everyone just sort of shrugs and says “that’s the way it is.” No. The system is broken. Fucking fix it.
Tommy Tuberville is an embarrassment to the Senate, to Alabama, and to the country. But he’s not the problem; he’s just the symptom.
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