"I have long written about tie color!"

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2019

Our highest elites at work: Because it deserves to live forever, we're going to give you David Leonhardt's statement to Rachel again. Here's what the Timesman actually said on Monday night's Maddow Show:

LEONHARDT (1/7/19): And, look, I'm not the biggest fan of George W. Bush's presidency, but George W. Bush remained a competent president to the end and he had none of the ethical issues that Trump does. And if you think about what Bush did in his last two years, he managed the disaster in Iraq responsibly, and he managed the financial crisis extremely responsibly.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve blame for what happened before. But imagine Donald Trump trying to manage a natural disaster or a war or a financial crisis. I find it frightening and I worry we would look back and say, "How did we not get rid of him beforehand?"

Bush remained competent to the end! After all, he managed the disaster in Iraq responsibly—the disaster he himself caused!

Leonhardt said it, and Rachel just smiled. So it goes on the highest platforms maintained by our fallen elites.

Leonhardt is typically sold as one of the brightest players at the New York Times. What else gets said at the New York Times? This very morning, on page A2, Vanessa Friedman says this:

"I have long written about tie color, especially during debates..."

She has long written about tie color! Out of this manifest inanity, the possibility of Trump was born.

Just for the record, Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for the New York Times since March 2014. Sadly, she "received her undergraduate degree from Princeton," her company bio reports.

In today's essay, Friedman is defending her recent articles about Nancy Pelosi's clothes. On line, her fiery piece appears beneath these pugnacious, street-fightin' headlines:

Why Covering Nancy Pelosi’s Hot Pink Dress Isn’t Sexist
Our chief fashion critic says not to cover the speaker’s style choices would be irresponsible.

You see, Friedman has been criticized for frisking Pelosi's clothes. This morning, her act of self-defense starts off like this:

FRIEDMAN (1/11/19): Last month, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, first met with President Trump about funding for a border wall, I wrote an article about the burnt orange MaxMara coat Ms. Pelosi wore when she exited the White House, which had set social media aflame.

The story reached a huge audience, but not everyone was happy. One irritated reader tweeted, “Would a man’s suit get this much ink?”

Given that I have written about President Trump’s suits, Jeb Bush’s shirtsleeves and Marco Rubio’s shoes, my answer is yes.

As she continues, Friedman defends herself against charges of sexism by noting the fact that she also wastes everyone's time with endless, brain-damaged ruminations about male politicians' clothes. That brings us to her defining claim:

"I have long written about tie color." Also, about various male politicians' shirtsleeves, suits and shoes!

She's written about tie color for years! According to that pair of headlines, it would be "irresponsible" not to.

In fairness to Friedman, let's start with a comment about the readers who charged her with sexism. Simply put, it isn't true that writers like Friedman restrict themselves to the wardrobe selections of our female pols.

No one's wardrobe ever got frisked more extensively than that of Candidate Gore. His boots, his suits, his polo shirts; the height at which he hemmed his pants; the fact that one of his suits was "earth toned;" the number of buttons on his suit jackets; the obvious fact that three-button suits constituted a sick approach to female voters—all these ridiculous claims, and more, were advanced by the criminal minds who sent George W. Bush to the White House, where he performed so well.

How sick are these prehuman stars, who run on the fuel of Professor Harari's gossip and fiction? Below, you see a Washington Post Pulitzer winner after Gore and Bradley staged their first Democratic debate in October 1999.

The candidates focused on health care. Children are dead all over the world because our nation's highest elites function in this puzzling way:

MCGRORY (10/31/99): Vice President Albert Gore came to his fateful encounter with newly menacing challenger Bill Bradley carrying heavy baggage. He was wearing an outfit that added to his problems when he stepped onstage at Dartmouth College: a brown suit, a gunmetal blue shirt, a red tie—and black boots.

Was it part of his reinvention strategy? Perhaps it was meant to be a ground-leveling statement—"I am not a well-dressed man." It is hard to imagine that he thought to ingratiate himself with the nation's earliest primary voters by trying to look like someone seeking employment at a country music radio station. Maybe it was the first step in shedding his Prince Albert image.

The debate had focused on health care, including the nation's sick children. The slugs who pose as the nation's journalists could only respond like that.

(How had they behaved in the press room at Dartmouth? Thanks in part to a phone call from Hanover immediately after the debate, we were able to tell you! To acquaint yourselves with the soul of the beast, you can just click here.)

Readers swore that writers like Friedman only discuss the clothing of female pols. That's because they themselves are pre-rational beings. They work live and direct from tribal narrative (Harari's "fictions"), not from observation of real life as actually lived here on Earth.

Meanwhile, our meritocratic elites live and die with their ultimate piffle. Bush was competent to the end! Meanwhile, the Friedmans will be writing like this until the advent of Mister Trump's War, the war they created in thirty years of utter drivel and meritocratic failure.

This is who our elites actually are. When our new year starts at this site, we'll be examining this phenomenon from a wide array of angles.

"I have long written about tie color!" Friedman's statement should go on the tombstone, the one our disordered president is fashioning for our failed western world.

Also this: Was it the best sex you ever had?

That was multimillionaire Diane Sawyer, asking Marla Maples, long ago, about getting it on with The Donald.

This is who and what they are. This is what they care about. We leave you today with the coming year's question:

Are they "rational animals?" Or is that Aristotle's error, committed long ago?