IDENTITY RULES: Beschloss imagines assassinations!

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022

Joyce Vance pricks a balloon: It's fairly obvious that Michael Beschloss shares Identity Blue.

There's nothing automatically wrong with that; we're part of the blue tribe too! That said, Michael Beschloss, a good decent person, was caught last night on MSNBC scripting an especially lurid episode of the old TV show, 24.

By trade, Beschloss is a "presidential historian," not a Hollywood screenwriter. Biographically speaking, he holds every known advantage. 

After prepping at Phillips Andover, he graduated from Williams, then from Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, his Iranian-born wife is  a former treasurer and chief investment officer of a little ramshackle storefront  known as the World Bank.

Beschloss also has the advantage of his own intelligence—and of the fact that he's decent and good. That said, he was scripting a lurid episode last night, a lurid episode in which Michael Pence, and possibly others, had possibly been targets of Secret Service "assassination plots."

Beschloss was imagining hard and blabbing on network TV. We can't link to a transcript of what he said—had he said it on CNN, we could!—but before he started his cable meltdown, he had posted this rather strange tweet:

BESCHLOSS (7/21/22): If Pence was in danger of assassination on January 6, what could now be keeping him from testifying about his near-death experience that day—and about who he thinks was to blame?

Say what? Who on earth had ever said that Pence was "in danger of assassination" on January 6? And by the way:

"Assassination" by whom?

Before long, Beschloss would be offering a lurid speculation on "cable news" giant MSNBC. First, though, he appended this additional bit of weirdness to his original tweet:

BESCHLOSS: Does Pence now need to be offered a place in the federal witness protection program to get him to testify about who tried to kill him on January 6?

Say what? Was that tongue in cheek? It's hard to know when lifeforms like this are trying to be ironic.

Beschloss went to Andover, Williams and Harvard. In recent weeks, though, the stresses of blue tribe identity rites have had him saying and tweeting things which are possibly strange.

This morning, on Morning Joe, Beschloss kept pouring it on. Shortly before 6:20 A.M.,  he referred to the saga of the missing Secret Service texts.

Behaving in much the way that Donald Trump does, he referred to the (unfounded) "possibility that this involved intended assassinations" of such people as Pence and Nancy Pelosi. He seemed to say that the Secret Service might be involved with Donald J. Trump in these possible intended assassinations. 

For the text of his fuller statement, see below. So it goes when the posers of corporate news start coming wholly undone. 

Other stars of our failing blue tribe had been tossing kidnapping speculations around. The historian Beschloss took them one better. He was now plainly suggesting that [someone in] the Secret Service may have hatched a deliberate plan to assassinate these major figures.

He offered no basis for this claim. He was creating a 24 plot, but on a "cable news" channel.

Various people, Mark Twain included, have been quoted saying this:

"A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on."

According to the New York Times, that saying actually dates to Jonathan Swift. But in the modern context, the saying should really go like this:

"A wholly unfounded speculation is easy to pimp nationwide."

Michael Beschlosss should know much better—but the elites of our failing blue tribe have failed us again and again. 

In truth, Beschloss, who ought to know better, was imagining a very bad TV script. That said, this is the way crazed rumors start—and no one in the Morning Joe gaggle spoke up about Beschloss' conduct.

Had people in the Secret Service been plotting to assassinate Pence? By way of contrast, had they merely been planning to kidnap Pence so Trump could stay in power?

If so, which people in the Secret Service were doing such things? When it comes time to embarrass ourselves, does it even matter?

During last night's hearing, we heard about the way Pence's Secret Service agents were making farewell phone calls home as Donald L. Trump's lunatic mob spread through the Capitol Building. It didn't sound like those agents knew that they were involved in assassination or kidnapping plots.

That said, so what? The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our highest-ranking "journalists" are often amazingly unskilled, unwise, unhelpful, self-involved, instinctively uncomprehending.

Joe and Mika continued the bullshit today; their various guests joined in. With that in mind, we'll mention something we think Joyce Vance may have said.

We think we may have heard her say it on MSNBC last night. We think we heard her say something like this:

Secret Service agents are told that they shouldn't engage in texting because texting isn't secure.

We can't tell you if she actually said it because of the transcript thing. We also don't know if the several parts of that statement are accurate. 

Nor do we know if some such state of affairs will end up playing a role in Secret Service Messagegate, if the basic facts are ever made clear about the allegedly missing texts.

We can tell you this:

The multimillionaire stars of our self-impressed tribe act more like Trump every day. They go on the air and speculate wildly. Whatever shit comes into their heads, they stupidily blurt it out.

In the meantime, we offer a bit of wisdom. That wisdom goes like this:

It takes time—sometimes a lot of time—to assemble the actual facts of some given case. In the meantime, under modern Identity Rules, every circus clown on the planet will show up on cable TV tossing unfounded bullshit around.

Beschloss was scripting a lurid episode of 24. We know that he's secretly better than that—but as we close, we'll say this:

On the real 24, the episode would have involved his wife, who would have been linked to some mullahs. This game is amazingly easy to play. Beschloss should take a step back.

At any rate, this is the world we now inhabit, thanks to people like Beschloss. Thanks to people like Mika and Joe. Thanks to the constantly spouting Lawrence and his various unrestrained guests, Claire McCaskill included. 

Increasingly, there's no unfounded speculation too lurid for our own failing tribe. Regarding the matter of the Secret Service, we will tell you this:

It will take a while lo learn the facts. It may be that we'll never learn them.

In the meantime, you'll hear every kind of unfounded dream being spewed by Joe, and by Nicolle, and by their "favorite reporters and friends." There's nothing these people won't do and say. They're more like Trump every day.

According to world-renowned anthropologists, this is what the elites of our species are frequently like. They've scratched and clawed to get to the top, and they don't intend to turn back.

Concerning the aforementioned Beschloss: Have you ever seen him say a word about the way his fellow insiders spent all those years trashing Candidates Gore and Clinton, thereby electing Bush and Trump and reinventing the Supreme Court?

Dearest darlings, use your heads! It simply isn't done!

Fuller statement by Beschloss: Starting at 6:19 A.M., Beschloss offered these remarks on today's Morning Joe:

BESCHLOSS (7/22/22): Everything we’re finding out suggests that [Trump] was at the center of a blueprint for a coup d'état. It involved even the Supreme Court, Ginni Thomas was calling back and forth to Donald Trump’s chief of staff. He was calling members of Congress. 

We certainly know that the Secret Service was involved. There's a possibility, as you both have been saying, Mika and Joe, this morning, that this involved intended assassinations—never thought I’d say this about an American president—intended assassinations of the vice president of the United States, we certainly have that quote from Trump saying Mike Pence deserves to be hanged. And also, do we think that he would have been unhappy if someone, God forbid, had gone after Nancy Pelosi or other congressional leaders? You look at authoritarians in history who try to overthrow governments, there’s usually an assassination component. That, I think, is one question we’ve got to ask about the Secret Service.

We've got to ask if [someone in] the Secret Service was involved in intended assassinations! In our view, those to whom much is given shouldn't be spouting like this.

Beschloss is a decent person. In our view, he should stop acting like Trump.