Political Asshole(s) of the Week: 3rd edition

Curmophiles have determined, by the narrowest of margins, that the new Political Assholes of the Week (candidates here) are that collection of governors who, through a literally fatal combination of arrogance, privilege, and political cowardice, refused to order the wearing of masks, social distancing, etc., in the face of a pandemic that is ravaging the country. Curmie wants to be sure each of these craven hacks gets due recognition, so here’s at least a short list of the worthy Political Asshole of the Week recipients: John Bel Edwards (D-LA), Steve Bullock (D-MT), Doug Ducey (R-AZ), Gary Herbert (R-UT), Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Kay Ivey (R-AL), Jim Justice (R-WV), Bill Lee (R-TN), Henry McMaster (R-SC), Kristi Noem (R-SD). Please note that some of these folks are guiltier than others, and that some may have seen at least a glimmer of light in the last week.

It should be noted, too, that Senator Paul received more total votes than the governors did: combine his solo nomination with the one for the entire GOP Senate majority, and he’d have outdistanced the governors. So he gets a Special Dishonorable Mention.

Nino Vitale: stupid, insane, or just grandstanding?

And so we move on to this week’s candidates, remembering that the obvious choice—a certain corrupt asshole who commuted the already inadequate sentence of one of his gaggle of mendacious minions—is ineligible, because otherwise no one else would ever get a chance. So let us return to the subject of COVID-19. It’s difficult to imagine anyone who better fits the title of Political Asshole of the Week than Nino Vitale, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. From this distance, it’s difficult to determine if Vitale is stupider than skunk shit, hearing voices from the planet Looneytunes, or he’s just another third-rate party hack trying to get his name in the paper, whatever the cost. Curmie guesses the answer is a little of all three with an emphasis on the last, but can’t be sure.

Vitale asks, “Are you tired of living in a dictatorship yet?”. Well, actually, yes, Curmie would prefer to live in country in which someone convicted of multiple felonies can’t have his sentence commuted by the guy he was trying to protect by that perjury and obstruction. Such an event bears a little more resemblance to dictatorship than does the slight inconvenience caused by making you wear a mask so as not to inadvertently kill your friends and neighbors.

Vitale also demands, in junior high level hysterical all capital letters no less, that people not get tested. No rationale offered.  He continues: “Have you noticed they never talk about deaths anymore, just cases? And they never talk about recoveries. They just keep adding to numbers they have been feeding us from over 3 months ago!” Gee, do you suppose that the numbers are going up because that’s what numbers do when you’re counting things? “Recoveries”? Yes, there are over a million Americans who have “recovered”; that’s in part because recoveries include people who have been released from the hospital, but who may have lingering health issues, including permanent damage to lungs and other vital organs. Curmie has a couple of friends in that category, and is a little loath to consider them truly “recovered.” As for not talking about deaths—well, here Curmie can help you out, you duplicitous little turd: over 4000 Americans died from COVID-19 in the last week. Indeed, literally every week since late March has had a death toll from this virus that exceeded that of 9/11. Over 3000 of your fellow Ohioans have died from the virus; 47 of those fatalities were reported on the day you made your moronic Facebook post.

Whether or not Representative Vitale becomes Political Asshole of the Week, he does make Curmie embarrassed for the species.

Texas GOP: they don't really care even about their own.

Next up: the Texas Republican Party, which sued the mayor of Houston for protecting its rank and file delegates to the state convention. This is outrageous enough on its own, but it’s important to take it in context. Earlier in the week the state GOP decided to move forward with an in-person conference despite the state’s surging infection and death tolls and Houston’s being a hotspot for the virus, with demand for ICU units outstripping supply. Ah, but the actual politicians—Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and similar people of privilege—would be addressing the crowd of 6000 or so virtually. The rationale: “to focus all the attention on the business of the meeting and to get everybody in and out of here as quickly and as safely as possible.” Curmie need hardly tell you, Gentle Reader, that this is politics-speak for “we’re willing to risk the health and safety of other people, even our loyal supporters… but not ourselves.”

So now they think they can make some cheap political points for saying that Houston’s Democratic mayor is somehow discriminating against them because we wants to keep them and their families (and yes, Houstonians working in the hotels, bars, and restaurants they’d frequent) safe and well by disallowing an in-person convention. The key point here is that the top brass, whose mendacity is matched only by their cravenness, weren’t going to be there anyway, because they recognized the danger. Few events in recent history have so encapsulated the hubris of Republicans in power as this act of raging hypocrisy.

Speaking of hypocritical Texas Republicans (there’s another kind?), we turn now to our third nominee, Senator Ted Cruz. In a different week, Sen. Cruz might have had to struggle for the nomination against his colleague John Cornyn, whose completely inane comments about not knowing whether children can get and transmit the coronavirus even though over 1700 children have been diagnosed just in Texas marks him as either an idiot or a liar (psssssst: he’s both). But we’re trying to keep one slot open for non-COVID-related stories, so ol’ Rafael sneaks in, barely ahead of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose “People will do what they do” reply to a question about toppling a statue of Christopher Columbus at least had the mitigating factors of being impromptu and decontextualized. (Still pretty bad, though.)

Ted Cruz, hypocrite.  Some things don’t change.

Anyway, back to Ted Cruz. Here’s the thing. Boycotting major corporations is largely ineffective. Curmie used to buy three or four chicken sandwiches a month from Chik-fil-A; he hasn’t had any Hate Chicken in several years. He’s probably withheld between maybe $150 from them in gross sales any given year of late. And… let’s see… they bring in a little over $10 billion a year, so Curmie has punished them to the tune of (assuming Curmie didn’t misplace a decimal point somewhere) about 15 ten-millionths of 1% of their revenue. Take that, billionaire Cathy family!

But it’s certainly Curmie’s right to make that decision, which, after all, is far more to make him feel better about himself than to punish the corporation. And it’s equally fine for other groups of people not to support Nike, or Target, or Hobby Lobby, or Starbucks, or whatever. We can agree or disagree with each other’s motives, but we cannot deny each other’s right to buy or not buy Product X or Service Y even for idiosyncratic reasons. You understand that, Gentle Reader, as does Curmie. Ted Cruz does not.

When, a year ago, Cruz himself made a big show of boycotting Nike, that, you see, was exercising free speech. (It was.) But now, when the Goya Foods CEO made some fawning comments about President Trump and the Twittersphere erupted with calls to boycott the company, that response is an attempt to “silence free speech.” Senator Cruz has an understanding of the Constitution that would be embarrassing in a junior high kid. Free speech isn’t defined by whether Senator Cruz (or Curmie, or anyone else) agrees with it. Nor does it guarantee freedom from repercussions. It’s simply a protection against governmental interference. If you proffer a stupid opinion, you can’t go to jail for it. That doesn’t mean I have to keep buying your garbanzo beans. (Of course, for Curmie to stop doing so, he’d first have to start…)

Of course, the idea that Ted Cruz is a hypocritical asshole has been obvious for years to anyone paying attention. But is he the Political Asshole of the Week? That, Gentle Readers, is for you to decide.

EDIT: Something went wonky with the poll. I'm calling it off early this time.