Cloris Leachman and Hal Holbrook were two of my favorite character actors, and both have died recently. Holbrook was 95 and Leachman was 94, so both lived long, full lives. I doubt if I could name every movie or TV show I saw Holbrook in, but the role that immediately comes to mind is Deep Throat in All the President's Men. He was equally skilled at portraying nice guys, bad guys, decent guys, and real people like Mark Twain or Abe Lincoln. Leachman got my attention as a dramatic actress in The Last Picture Show, but I really enjoyed her work in Mel Brooks comedies like Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety, and as Phyllis in The Mary Tyler Moore Show on television. Like Hal Holbrook, she was versatile.
So Hal Holbrook and Cloris Leachman are gone, and Cheez Doodle lives on.
When I started blogging in September 2007, one of my earliest topics was what I referred to as the Basic National Stupidity Rate, which I determined by simply averaging the (R) share of the popular vote in presidential elections since 2000. The last time I calculated the BNSR was after Obama beat Mittens in 2012, and at that time the national number was 47.88 percent. I always made a concurrent computation for Texas, and in 2012, the state stupidity rate was a staggering 58.25 percent. Texas was roughly 10 points stupider than the national average.
Since the last update, we've had two more presidential elections, and El Cheezo lost the popular vote both times. Averaging only 2016 and 2020 produces a national stupidity rate of 46.48 % and a Texas rate of 52.09 %. It took the worst fucking Republican candidate in U.S. history to LOWER the national & state stupidity rates.
El Cheezo's latest team of ambulance-chasing assholes may be slightly more competent than the others we've been exposed to since last November, but that doesn't mean they're elite prize-winners. One part of their defense: The Democrats should exclude any existing video that clearly shows El Cheezo committing the crime he's accused of committing. Another part: The Constitution protects his right of free speech, so anything he said on January 6th must be okay.
Most people who saw Lindsey Graham's TV interview interpreted his remarks as a threat to bring in the FBI to testify if Democrats insist on witness testimony as part of the El Cheezo impeachment trial. I watched the video excerpt and got a different impression: Lindsey wasn't threatening to include FBI testimony; he's hoping to avoid anything like that.
If I'm understanding the reports, El Cheezo's impeachment defense isn't that he didn't do it, it's that he was entitled to commit the crime because he won the election. That should work.
The RepubliQan Party? Okay.
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