Kinda Kute

Ya make a guy feel humble
I make a fool of myself again
Ya make me trip and stumble
Just go dance by yourself again....

And you're kinda kute baby, kinda kute baby
See you dance in your satin suit baby
When you move gotta sit right down
No competition with
This kinda kutie around

--Joe Jackson, "Kinda Kute" 1979, from the album I'm the Man

Kinda Kute, isn't it, watching the president of the United States whimper and moan about Russian "intervention" in the 2016 election?  Kinda precious, isn't it, watching the titular head of a government that has intervened before, during, and after elections, and with lawyers, guns, money, and drugs, in countries around the world and across decades,  whine about the treacherous, nefarious, outrageous actions of the Putin government which violated the gentleman's code of coup plotting....by hacking and releasing emails?  

Are you putting me on?  The US which overthrows elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Chile; invades Vietnam rather than abide by the terms of the 1954 Geneva accords; blockades Cuba and launches numerous assassination attempts against Fidel Castro; funds an army of death squads against the revolution in Nicaragua; that prepared the right wing forces in Italy for civil war, if and when the communists gained elected power; is complaining about the Russians exposing thousands of emails written by members of the Democratic Party National Committee, and the Clinton campaign?

For twelve years, various amalgams of the right-- Tea Parties, conservatives, racists, fascists neo and/or plain and simple-- have been working diligently to suppress voting in states throughout the union, and the chief executive makes a big deal out of hacked emails?  

Did the president demand an end to these attempts to restore Plessy v. Ferguson, making the public accommodation of voting separate and unequal?

Did the president make a big deal about the North Carolina election officials reducing polling places in counties where African-American turnout could prove critical?   Nope.   Did he make a big deal out of Wisconsin's voter ID requirements?  Nope.  

In 2013, did he introduce new legislation immediately after the US Supreme Court invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, in order to preserve Section 5 that was left without any statutory power?  Nope.  No legislation introduced. 

But Russia hacks the emails of the Clinton campaign chairperson and...?  It's sabotage?  An act of war?  Reason to expel 35 Russian government employees?  

What?  They're spying?  No shit, Sherlock/Barack, you should have been a detective.  That's what they're supposed to do.  That's what they all, meaning yours, theirs, every country's agents, do in each other countries.

It's like Obama saying Trump represents a vicious threat to immigrants-- not that Trump doesn't, but Obama saying it?  Obama who has deported more people in the last 8 years than any president in US history?  Just good at his job, you think? 

Calling this display of "outrage"  sanctimonious, self-righteous, noxious hypocrisy is a gross understatement.

This isn't sabotage; this isn't a scandal.  That the Congress of the United States wants to investigate this supposed intervention when it has supported lock, stock, and barrel disenfranchising voters throughout its own existence, save for the brief period of Congressional Reconstruction after the Civil War, tells us all what it really is: a circus.  The clowns have already assembled.

S.Artesian

January 1, 2017