Becoming an ‘Enemy of the People’
After decades in corporate PR, acting nice and cordial, measured and careful, I decided to become an ‘enemy of the people.’
All because of Donald Trump’s harping about journalists! He’s always saying they’re the enemy of the people. They’re not!
Asking tough questions is what reporters do.
The tougher the questions, the better! Keeps you sharp. Keeps you on your toes.
I’ve known journalists. Did they piss me off, at times? Sure they did. But, so what! If you can’t handle tough questions, maybe you’re not as tough as you think.
Day-after-day, year-after-year, hearing his ‘enemy of the people’ shtick, I just wanted to become one. So, maybe, I could rattle POTUS 45’s cage, some.
So, after wrapping up 40-plus years in PR, I switched over to the Fourth Estate, and after a while, an online magazine began publishing some of my commentary, initially as letters to the editor, and then as columns. They’re called HMPRESENTLY.
I’ve opined about the lame-duck president and his acolytes.
Just yesterday, I wrote a column about the joint session of Congress, tomorrow — January 6th — to formally count the votes of the Electoral College. That’s been routine, almost always, throughout the nation’s history, with lame-duck Vice President Mike Pence, scheduled tomorrow, to read each state’s electoral vote tally, signifying Joe Biden as the nation’s next president, and Kamala Harris as the next vice president.
But there’s some BS brewing.
I don’t like BS. Here’s my column, here (and below):
HMPRESENTLY: Maybe You Remember the TV Show, ‘Gomer Pyle’?
by Harvey Radin | Jan 4, 2021 | News/Politics, Opinion/Letters
Early Saturday morning, I’ve got the TV on, with the volume turned way down. The family’s still asleep. I’m typing notes to myself, in my smart phone, as I’m watching political news.
The Pennsylvania lieutenant governor is talking about baseless voter fraud lawsuits.
Alleged voter fraud has been investigated and re-investigated in a number of states. Battleground states, mostly. What’s the tally? Sixty, or more, lawsuits? All of them, except one lawsuit, as I recall, or maybe a couple lawsuits, have been thrown out of court.
Ballots in various states have been recounted — how many times, now? — in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and elsewhere? Three times, at least? Maybe more? How many recounts does it take to conclude that more voters — some seven million more — cast their ballots for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, than for Donald Trump and Mike Pence?
And now, there’s this growing brouhaha involving the Electoral College. The Biden/Harris electoral vote tally was 306, way more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.
All those lawsuits that various courts and various judges — many of whom, by the way, are Republican-appointed, conservative judges — tossed out! And why were they tossed? Because the lawsuits, basically, were, as they say in the legal profession, without merit. I believe that’s the term that applies to the outcomes.
On TV, Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman is describing the small number of people in his state, who had alleged election fraud, as “snake handlers.” We’ve got a few of them around here, he notes.
That’s one cool guy, the Pennsylvania Lt. Governor. He stands out in a crowd. He’s a big guy who played college football. He speaks his mind. He’s definitely not a cookie-cutter politician. That’s why he’s cool.
Later on, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert is in the news. Politico has this headline:
Judge throws out Gohmert suit aimed at empowering Pence to overturn 2020 election results.
The Texas congressman actually wants Vice President Mike Pence to be granted the authority to overturn the election. To ignore the will of some 81 million people who voted for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris.
That’s what Rep. Gohmert, and some others in the House of Representatives and the Senate, seem to be pushing for.
VP Pence will be presiding when Congress meets in a joint session, on January 6, to formally count the votes of the Electoral College, as submitted by the states. So, as in the past, the vice president, in his role as president of the Senate, is supposed to open sealed certificates submitted by each state, with the vote tallies. 306 Electoral College votes for Biden/Harris. 232 Electoral College votes for Trump/Pence… I read up on the procedure in an NPR article.
But rather than that, for the umpteenth time, Mr. Gohmert and the others, apparently, are mounting some kind of challenge, including even proposing to give VP Pence the authority to do whatever he might decide to do.
This would be totally weird and unprecedented in the nation’s history. That’s why the judge, thankfully, tossed out Congressman Gohmert’s lawsuit.
Maybe you remember the TV show, ‘Gomer Pyle’, about the misadventures of a bumbling U.S. Marine, with that fictional name… Gomer Pyle. The TV series debuted in 1964.
And, maybe it was Jack Parr, a TV comedian and talk show host — he hosted The Tonight Show in its early days — who once questioned whether the TV series about the bumbling soldier should be called the Gomer Pyle show, or pile of Gomer? Mr. Parr wasn’t a fan, apparently.
His quip stayed in my mind.
Maybe you know where I’m going with this? With pile of Gomer… and Gohmert?
But anyway, my bad! Should I be more understanding? Or should I get back to my notes in the phone, and to what I typed about Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who, according to news media, apparently, will also oppose the electoral vote certification, joining forces, in a way, with — forgive me! — pile of Gohmert.
So, about Senator Hawley, I wrote:
Senator Hawley… didn’t he attend Stanford and Yale? Which Stanford was that? And which Yale?
Again, you’ve got to forgive me, this is all just way too much!
I went on to type, in my high-tech shorthand:
Need to put the country on one of those lifts you see at auto repair shops. Pneumatic lifts, I think they’re called. Get the nation up on one. Drain the oil, put in fresh…check the fan belt, the carburetor. Total tune up needed!
