Before the speechmaking started at Fancy Farm on Saturday, the emcee, a Catholic priest, besought all the politicians — meaning Ds and Rs — to be nice.
But since Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell opened the sluice gates of slime at the state’s premier picnic years ago, the venom and vitriol have been flowing in ever-increasing volume from the GOP lineup.
Democrats that I spoke with after the speeches seemed to agree that the speakers mostly heeded the padre’s admonition. McConnell, they suggested, came across as less smarmy than usual.
Even so, Republican First District Congressman James Comer stepped to his own drum. He rat-a-tatted his customary dissembling and demagoguery.
Comer didn't have a lot to say about his Democratic challenger and fellow Frankfort resident, Erin Marshall. He mostly focused his hectoring on Gov. Andy Beshear; President Joe Biden; his son, Hunter Biden; and Vice President Kamala Harris now that she’s the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
The GOP faithful ate it up. They repeatedly interrupted Comer’s speech with whoops and hollers. They gleefully cheered, clapped, and waved blue Comer signs, Trump flags, and big cutouts of Comer’s face.
Comer sounded like a keynoter at a Q-Anon conclave when he hooted against “deep state bureaucrats” and hissed against “left-wing liberal policies”– the latter a favorite far-right redundancy rivaling “godless atheist.”
The right-wing Golden Oldies kept coming.
Comer recounted how in Washington he fights the good fight against “bad people with no common sense waging war each day against our fundamental values.” Evidently, veracity isn’t one of them.
Comer claimed falsely, or deliberately misleadingly, that “liberal Democrats” aim to “ban gasoline vehicles” and are all in for allowing “men to play women’s sports.” They want to stop the mining of “west Kentucky coal and replace it with solar farms in our cornfields.” They’re cool with permitting “all the illegal aliens that border czar Harris allowed into the United States to be able to vote in our elections.”
Pandering to transphobia is always a big-time hit with the MAGA crowd, especially those of the Jesus-loves-Me-but-he-can't-stand-you persuasion. So are old-fashioned Know-Nothing style nativism and xenophobia. BTW: “border czar” is a made up slam, not a real title President Biden conferred on his Veep.
Comer thrilled the true believers when he bragged on himself for leading the fight “that exposed how corrupt the Biden family has been in their influence-peddling scheme which netted them tens of millions of dollars from our enemies around the world.”
The congressman failed to mention that the “fight” has failed to turn up any proof.
“It’s been 30 years since Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels appeared in the Farrelly Brothers’ comedy classic Dumb and Dumber, so it seems like an appropriate time for another sequel to be added to the franchise, this one to be called Dumb and Dumber and Dumbest, with Rep. Jamie Comer claiming a starring role,” Northern Kentucky Tribune columnist Bill Straub wrote last month.
Added the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Famer: “Comer, R-TheFrankfortLoop, is no stranger to making a fool of himself on the public stage so it should be a seamless transition.
“His antics as chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee over the past three and a half years are a congressional legend that have rendered our boy a laughingstock and brought disrepute upon the Commonwealth for dispatching a thoroughly bewildered mook to the nation’s capital in the first place.
“Jamie, you’re sure to recall, spent months and months seeking to prove that President Biden was the capo de tutti capo of a notorious Delaware crime family laying waste to the nation he was pledged to serve. Time after time he offered evidence that he swore would drive the administration to its knees and lead to Biden’s impeachment post haste. And time after time his claims went swirling down the bowl.”
Concluded Straub: “Comer has never really sought accountability. It has all been about political positioning, as the abysmal and stupefying probe into the non-existent Biden Crime Family conclusively proved. If he’s really searching for a candidate ‘clearly unfit for office,’ here’s a suggestion – look for one who raped a woman, was found guilty on 34 felony fraud counts, instigated an insurrection of the United States government, and has a history of various other sins that would reach to Pluto and back.
“Then you might be on to something.”
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