Kalamity Kamala and The Talking Machine

The next step in this dime-store kaleidoscopic presidential election is for the president of Kamalot—it’s a pricey summer camp for The Illusionists, even if took the has-beens at New York magazine to produce an image—to proclaim, “Hug a Journalist Week” and let the fun, fun, fun commence until a CIA Mean Mr. Mustard pops all the balloons, or MSNBC takes Rachel away. It’s a shame that I’m rarely in contact with “normie” journalists and won’t have the opportunity to get a contact high, the kind that The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg and The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan are relishing on Cloud 15. (Itsy bitsy teenie weenie digression: “back in the day,” I never believed in “contact highs” nor did anyone in my crazy-for-reefer sphere; also, I think Noonan just likes a fun, fun, fun election, while Goldberg (as a Times source, on the condition of anonymity to protect the Harris campaign, confirmed to me) was one of Kamalot’s architects.

I do wonder, whenever the sugar-high sends the Kamala cheerleaders down into the recovery pit where victims of a severe “crash” can eat pizza and frozen Howard Johnson’s clam strips—comfort/hangover food—if they’ll lickety-split rebound and get back to doing their jobs. My son would say, “Dad, it’s not 1996,” but I can wish upon a shooting star with this country’s best and brightest, and promise I won’t regurgitate the meaningless epithet of conservatives—especially at The National Review—calling those they disagree with “clowns.” That slur on Bozo has lasted far too long for my liking, and I could take the DEFCON 5 step of summoning Mr. Green Jeans to restore order.

Last week, videos surfaced of Kamala and her nominal boss (who wandered off to an empty plane) welcoming the returned prisoners from Russia, in particular the Journal’s Evan Gershkovich, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, and the leader of White Dudes for Kamala, said: “This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy.” As usual, Honorary White Dude Kamala took no questions from the media, even if she (or someone on her earpiece) knew the queries would be beachballs, the kind that Rafael Devers hits to the opposite field, over the Green Monster at Fenway Park. (I’m impartial about baseball, Sox, Sox, Sox, but in the spirit of Kamalot, albeit absent a contact high, must mention the To the Moon, Alice seasons that Aaron Judge, Anthony Santander, Bobby Witt Jr. and Shohei are having.)

I’m of the fair mind that once the Democratic Convention in no-crime Chicago concludes at the end of this month—by the way, isn’t it insulting that… what the fuck is his name…  right, Joe Biden was given a speaking slot of the first night, rather than introducing the candidate whose name he may, on good days, remember? Let’s drink to Dr. Jill, although hardly a “salt-of-the-earth” harridan, for she’s had a summer where every day is 140 degrees and it’s not even a “dry heat.” That’s a normal temperature for Hunter, so he’s cool, and, always the entrepreneur, no doubt planning his next legal (or not, what’s the dif?) heist to keep the cash flowing to maintain his Every-Day-Is-Spring-Break lifestyle.

That’s not meant as an insult, by the way, just a nod to smoke-‘em-if-you-got-‘em Hunter who, I swear on a Kamalot guidebook, has easily surpassed Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Neil Bush and Don Nixon as presidential black sheep. Granted, he was aided by the internet and all those rude photos, but as Martha used to say, “that’s a good thing,” because Jimmy’s brother in the buff would’ve been rough stuff in the 1970s. Although it’s possible Al Goldstein might’ve sold out multiple issues of the groundbreaking tabloid Screw (started with a mere $350) with those kind of images. And Screw, obviously, had a lot more cache than The New Republic or Newsweek, although the “normie” journalists of the Everybody-Wants-To-Be-Robert-Redford 1970s would’ve condescendingly sniffed at the mere notion of picking up a copy at a newsstand. (I never trusted any journalist back then who didn’t, at least twice, pop some quarters into a “adult bookstore” video booth or spent an evening out at a low-rent strip club.)

Anyway, I don’t expect the Times’ Michelle Goldberg will leave Kamalot any time soon, at least judging by this morsel from her column last week. “[A]t a moment when the Democratic Party wants to memory-hole calls to defund the police, some who were once turned off by Harris’s record as a prosecutor are thrilling to her law-and-order case against Trump. Her pop culture fluency is delighting Democrats who’d either never known or forgotten that politics can be fun.”

—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023