MONDAY: Wily Odysseus, now wracked with guilt!

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026

Megyn Kelly unchained: We haven't seen "The Odyssey" yet. We'll probably go next weekend.  

Many commentators have said that, for better or worse, the Christopher Nolan modernizes the ancient culture out of which the Iliad and the Odyssey emerged. In a new critique for The Atlantic, Peter Wehner offers this:   

An Odyssey for Our Own Time 

[...] 

Part of what makes The Odyssey so appealing to a modern audience is that it takes civilizing aspects of Greek culture—hospitality and magnanimity—and adds later concepts, some of them influenced by Jewish and Christian ethics that were, to varying degrees, alien to ancient Greek culture: deep introspection, even confession; humility and empathy; sorrow and guilt for the harm one has done, even in victory; the conviction that the conquered count and have worth; and vengeance tempered with mercy. In the film, Odysseus emerges as a figure haunted by his victory [at Troy] in a way that no ancient Greek would have been.   

According to Wehner, the Odysseus of the ancient poem wasn't a man wracked with guilt. We'll return to that general characterization at some later point.

As he continues his critique, Wehner contemplates our own society's ongoing loss of some of "the more humane virtues" on display in the film:

Much of life in the ancient Greek world was harsh, even barbarous—mass executions in conquered cities, torture, the weak discarded at birth, chattel slavery—which is precisely why the Greek commitment to honor and hospitality was remarkable then and still resonates today. So, too, do the later, more humane virtues the film weaves in.

Those virtues are now under assault. Movements and voices in our own country hold them in open contempt, treat mercy as weakness, and feed on vengeance and grievance. Theirs is a Nietzschean ethic, a “master morality,” the code of the strong that Christianity overthrew when it took the side of the slave, the stranger, and the destitute.

[...]

The world that this ethic is creating is harsh and barren, raw and uninviting. It exists in the daily coarseness, in the anger and the ugliness, and in the isolation. There is a weariness in us, and a sadness, at what we have become...   

Wehner may have written that shortly after watching the White House Correspondents Dinner last Friday evening. Or shortly after reading some of the copy Megyn Kelly is now bringing forth on the podcast beat.  

All reports come from Mediaite. You'll have to assess them yourself:

Megyn Kelly Takes Aim At Ex-CNN Anchor For Writing About Her Sex Life—Falsely Claims the Ex-Anchor Said She Was ‘Banging Four Men in a Month’ 
(for full report, click here)

Megyn Kelly Melts Down in Bonkers Rant Against ‘Scripted and Artificial’ Michelle Obama
(for full report, click here)

Bill And Hillary Clinton’s ‘Weird Marriage’ Slammed By Megyn Kelly
(for full report, click here)

‘Go Back to F*cking Haiti!’ Megyn Kelly Goes on Wild Rant Over Supreme Court Ruling 
(for full report, click here)

There's more where that came from. For the record, some bilious Blue American podcasters are basically like this too. 

Regarding Kelly's false claims about former anchor Brooke Baldwin, her lack of concern about her false statements is simply astounding. As for Baldwin, she may perhaps be on the verge of a lawsuit:

Baldwin Fires Back at Megyn Kelly for False Claims on Her Sex Life: ‘Talk About a Reckless Disregard for the Truth’ 
(for full report, click here)

Kelly has become unchained in these (recent) latter days.  The rise of the new technologies—the so-called "democratization of media"—has created this new world order:

Every venomous podcaster a king or a queen or a royal!

Every furious flyweight a monarch! 

Can a modern society function this way? In our weariness and in our sadness, do we possibly have a need for a new (secular) Awakening, for a "politics of meaning" to which various tribes can subscribe?

WE BLUES: Can anyone deny the fact that something is wrong?

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2026

We Blues almost surely will: In fairness, his first remark, taken in context, was a bit self-deprecating. You could possibly call it good-natured.

The comment was actually funny. To our ear, it got an honest laugh.

The fellow had just been introduced by Weijia Jiang, the head of the White House Correspondents Association, at last Friday night's restaging of the association's annual dinner. 

As part of her introduction, she made a reference to the cancellation of the first attempt. Below, you see what the sitting president said:

JIANG (7/24/26): ...President Trump, I've covered you for a long time and so have many reporters in this room.

When we ask questions, you push back. You give us answers, and we push back. You have always been a "deal" guy. Well, that's the deal—and the First Amendment is a done deal. 

And that's what we toast tonight—the freedoms that brought us back together, even after they were threatened. So let's raise a glass to what makes ours a beautiful country.

[Jiang leads the toast]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the 45th and 47th president of the United States, President Donald J. Trump.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Wow! That was very beautiful, but this has not been an easy evening—all these awards.

 AUDIENCE: [Laughter]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: [Grimaces, shakes his head]

As you can hear on the videotape, he got a very good laugh. We've been in many rooms where joking comments were offered. To our ear, the laughter he got was both authentic and earned.

In the earlier part of the evening, he'd sat in his seat at the head table as awards were given to various journalists who had challenged his endlessly disordered behavior. The awards were deserved, but the comment was rueful—and his rueful comments was rewarded with laughter, as you can hear on the tape.

His first comment received a good laugh. His presentation went downhill from there, screaming as it did. 

(For Roll Call's transcript, click here.)

He started with endless, tedious recollections built from his astonishing degree of self-involvement. From there, he proceeded to long strings of inane, inappropriate insults, driven along by his standard array of absurd, long-corrected misstatements.   

Governor Pritzker was "a fat pig." Governor Newsom's name was "Newscum." Jake Tapper was really "Fake Tapper."

Senator Schiff was said to have a "big fat ugly head." ("I call him watermelon head, because he has the largest head I've ever seen with the smallest neck.") 

Rosie O'Donnell is "a sick older woman, I guess now I have to say."  

We're omitting reams of other insults, not wishing to drive certain images and certain bogus claims forward. Pathetically, though, he even went with this embarrassing mess at one point: 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I know Dumocrats—and the word "Dumocrat" is something that's come into fashion. I changed the E with a U. And most people don't know that "dumb" has a B. So, we don't have to worry about that.

It's very quiet [in the hall]. I thought it was quite good, but I haven't gotten much credit for that. 

We'll offer a guess—most people do know that "dumb" is spelled with a B. This seems to have been a recent revelation to the sitting president, though perhaps to no one else.  

The insults and the self-involved tedium went on and on and on. At roughly the 50-minute mark, C-Span's cameras began to pan to frozen faces in the audience, as you can see on the official tape. 

As you can see on the tape, it panned to frozen faces in a silent hall at 10:22 p.m., then again at 10:23. 

Out in that audience, there seemed to be nothing except frozen faces, many looking down. At 10:28, as the droning continued, C-Span even panned, for the first time, to frozen faces at the head table. 

At 10:29, it showed another frozen face at the head table, along with a second person who was now sitting with his back turned to the president.   

He had now been droning for 56 minutes. At the one-hour mark, he finally said it:  

"It was a rigged election." 

Roughly five minutes later, he closed with an unhappily accurate statement:  

"Our country's doing things that no one's ever seen before."  

The accuracy was unintentional as the gentleman finally stopped. With that, we pose this morning's question:

At this point, can any serious person really doubt it? Can anyone doubt that something is severely wrong with the president?

He had seemed to be sleeping about half the time as he sat through the earlier speeches and the aforementioned awards. Later, he seemed to have trouble opening his eyes even when he himself was speaking. 

Can anyone doubt or deny that something seems to be wrong? The answer we'll give you today is this:   

We Blues are going to do just that! We Blues aren't going to speak!

David French and David Brooks aren't going to say it. Nicholas Kristof isn't going to say it. Neither is Michelle Goldberg or Peter Baker or anyone else from the New York Times news division.

Rachel Maddow isn't going to speak, and neither is Nicolle Wallace. Joe and Mika aren't going to say it. Neither is Lawrence O'Donnell.

No one at The Atlantic is going to speak. Jeffrey Greenberg isn't going to give anyone that assignment.

Anderson Cooper isn't going to speak, and neither is Jake Tapper. We're sorry to say that the same is almost surely true of Kaitlan Collins, whose character we've admired since the first Covid year, when she alone was willing to challenge the endless blather being performed at the president's televised bullroar and blather events.  

Is something wrong with President Trump? At this point, what sane person could really deny it? Consider:

As you probably know, the president tried to insult Collins at Friday night's event. The insult he tried to aim at her got more attention than any of the million additional insults which froze the faces of an entire ballroom that night.  

He tried to insult her, but neither she nor CNN was bowing to his pathetic attempt. And so, inevitably, what did he do? 

Of course! Turning to Truth Social, he went ahead and did it again! Over at Mediaite, here's the start of Joe DePaolo's report:

Trump Doubles Down on His Attack Against CNN’s Kaitlan Collins By Posting a Shocking New Meme

President Donald Trump doubled down on his attack against CNN’s Kaitlan Collins by posting a shocking new meme to his Truth Social account.

In a Sunday morning Truth post, the president shared a doctored photo depicting Collins in place of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a 2023 Bud Light promotional campaign.

Trump’s new meme comes on the heels of his attack on the CNN anchor Friday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in which he compared Collins to Mulvaney.

Joe DePaolo's report for Mediaite continues along from there. To see the president's Truth Social post, you can just click here.

Just to be clear:

The president's Truth Social post says nothing "shocking" about Collins. With great valor, she led the way in the first Covid year. 

We've been grateful ever since. The president's post says nothing "shocking" about her.

To the extent that the post is "shocking," it's shocking because of what it makes clear about the president himself. Simply put, it's no longer possible for reasonable observers to doubt the fact that something seems to be badly "wrong" with the sitting American president.

Now for the rest of the story:

No one could doubt or deny the fact that something seems to be wrong. No sane person could doubt or deny it, but We Blues almost certainly will!

Other parts of his recent conduct make this problem even more obvious. That said, We Blues are going to look away from this dangerous state of affairs.

In fairness, this is all part of the human condition. It's part of the imperfect wiring of our imperfect human species.

The Fox New News Channel is a giant slag heap, but We Blues are a piece of work too. Faces were frozen all through the hall.

We Blues aren't going to say that.

Tomorrow: "Other parts of his recent conduct make this problem even more obvious."

SATURDAY: The president spoke for over an hour!

SATURDAY, JULY 25, 2026

A politics of meaning: Did the president really speak for over an hour?

Yes, he actually did! Beyond that, also this:   

We've told you, quite a few times, that (severe) mental illness is always a human tragedy. The same is true of serious cognitive decline, which joins mental illness is robbing its victim of his or her human capacities.    

We've also said that, as far as we know, serious mental illnesses are actual illnesses, often with physiological bases over which the afflicted individual has no control. We've suggested that, as a political matter, pity for an afflicted public figure might tend to move more votes, as opposed to the hostility and loathing to which we humans are all inclined.   

(Hostility and loathing harden tribal positions.)

That said, the person to whom we refer spoke for over an hour! King Lear wandered on the moors. Last night, the sitting president went to the Waldorf Astoria. 

Here's what the AP saw:   

Trump returns to correspondents’ dinner for a rambling, insult-filled speech 3 months after shooting   

President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling, hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others, made jokes about public figures’ weight and intellect, and quipped about a third presidential term.  

[...]  

Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like—from Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience, reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered titters as the insults piled up.   

And so on from there.

"Insults" was by far the more accurate term, as opposed to the misleading "potshots." The Washington Post was perhaps a bit more direct:  

Trump’s insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned silence   

President Donald Trump attacked a slew of journalists and some of his favorite political foils at a slimmed-down redo of the White House correspondents’ dinner on Friday, comparing one female reporter to a transgender social media star, mocking politicians’ physical appearances, and bringing his audience to mostly stunned silence for more than an hour before pulling out a red Trump 2028 cap and declaring he was running for another term.   

[...]  

He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”   

He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.

“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”  

For our money, the instant reports don't capture the pitiful squalor of what we saw as we watched the event on TV. 

Regarding the latest of the president's never-ending comments about Collins, Mediaite reports his remarks in sad full detail. To see that report, click here.

We expect to have more about last evening's event when transcripts become available. We haven't seen a report which captures how awful and sad the president's hour was.

For today, we'll link you to what Democracy Now once said, a long time ago, about the suggestion that we Americans need to develop a "politics of meaning."  

It was May 23, 1996. If you were willing to squint a bit, the shape of our current failing political culture had already come into view.

Democracy Now is an organ of what gets called "the left." Here's what Democracy Now said at that long-ago, distant time:   

Politics of Meaning  

There’s no doubt that we’re in a period of great cynicism about what government does or can do to improve our lives. Psychotherapist Michael Lerner believes this cynicism and the alienation that Americans feel are a direct result of the ethic of selfishness that pervades American politics, from the White House on down. 

Lerner is the author of a new book called The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism. Michael Lerner gained national exposure when Hillary Rodham Clinton used his phrase “Politics of Meaning” in a speech; the media then started calling Lerner “Hillary’s Guru”. 

Nonetheless, Lerner’s ideas are the foundation for a growing social movement in the U.S. that blends humanist politics with spirituality, and aims to provide a progressive answer to the power of religious right. Last month, over a thousand participants attended a first national conference in Washington D.C.

We’ll now hear an excerpt of a speech by Michael Lerner in which he explains his concept of a politics of meaning and its importance in this era of conservative domination.   

The audio is no longer there. Our comment would be this:   

Democracy Now was looking for a "progressive answer" to the culture then current on "the right." There's no reason why the people at that site shouldn't have felt that way, but in our view, we really need a new politics in which people from all major points of view can accept certain basic precepts.  

At present, we're all stuck within a failed state. We desperately need a new politics. 

Some current behaviors will have to go. What we're doing now isn't sustainable.

Next week: We Blues

FRIDAY: Tarlov cited the new Fox poll!

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026

One-way interruption: Our guess turned out to be right.

Yesterday afternoon, we told you this about that new SHOCK POLL:

"We'll guess that viewers of The Five will not be told, later today, about that SHOCKING new poll, the one with the Dems plus-11."

That was a reference to the new Emerson College poll—the poll which had the Democrats up by eleven points in the "generic ballot" race for control of the House.

Early yesterday afternoon, we guessed that it wouldn't be mentioned on The Five. We were correct about that:

On Wednesday, the tools had hyped a (possible outlier) poll which placed the Democratic lead at a mere three points. On Thursday, the tools didn't mention the (possible outlier) poll which tilted in the other direction.

Yesterday, we also mentioned the new Fox News poll, which had placed the Democratic Party's lead at 7 points. On Wednesday, the tools didn't mention their own new poll! 

Yesterday, though, the new Fox poll was mentioned right away! At 5:01 p.m., Jesse Watters said this:

WATTERS (7/23/26): New Fox poll, showing that a majority of Democrats actually have a favorable opinion of the DSA, and socialism in general. 

Democrat kingmaker James Clyburn also fuming over the Commies...

And so on from there. 

(Three hours later, on Jesse Watters Primetime. Watters said "Commie" or "Commies" at least a dozen times. At 8 o'clock sharp, he opened with a pseudo-discussion of the "Commie Catfight"—or as chyron had it, the GIRL FIGHT!—which has broken out, or so he said, between AOC and Kamala Harris. If you think we must be making this up, you can just click here.)  

Sad! Back to yesterday's edition of The Five:

At 5:01, with the day still young, Watters selected the part of the new Fox poll which showed that 59% of Democratic respondents had voiced a favorable view of the DSA (AKA "the Commies").

On The Five, that's equivalent to a finding of terminal ptomaine poisoning. Watters mentioned no other findings from the gloomy Fox poll.

Later, because Jessica Tarlov was in the Democratic Party chair instead of Harold Ford, the new Fox poll was mentioned a! Given the opportunity to try to speak, Tarlov offered this:   

TARLOV: There was a lot more to that Fox poll, and it was absolutely brutal for Republicans...

Democrats up 53 to 46.  In counties where the presidential vote was close—so, decided within 10 points—Democrats up 59-41. Up on inflation and prices and the economy. Young people, old people, women, independents—the only group that Donald Trump was up with was white voters, and that was just GOP plus one.

With Tarlov, not Ford, in the Democratic Party chair, the Fox survey did get mentioned. Now for the rest of the story:   

We'd offer Tarlov's attempt to speak this day as an example of the pitiful "interruption culture" which pervades this "cable news" program. By our reckoning, the interruptions went like this:   

As the program started, the four (4) pro-MAGA co-hosts were discussing the segment's basic topic—President Trump's critique of the way "the crazy Commies" are "trying to burn down the [Democratic] Party." (We're quoting the language of Watters, who was moderating the segment.)  

The four went on until 5:09. Everyone got his or her say. There were no interruptions.    

Then, at 5:09, Watters finally threw to Tarlov. By our calculation, this is the way it went:

Tarlov spoke for almost two minutes before the first set of interruptions occurred. Inevitably, they came from Greg Gutfeld. You can see the muttplay here.   

After the interruptions and the laughter subsided, Tarlov attempted to start again—and now she mentioned the Fox News poll! This time, it was Brian Kilmeade who stepped in to contradict and interrupt, with Gutfeld soon jumping in with more of his useless thoughts. 

"This is so nerdy," Gutfeld finally said as Tarlov tried to resume. "Yeah, you're in the weeds a little bit, Jessica," the idiot Watters now said, and with that astute assessment the segment was brought to an end.

Full disclosure!  Tarlov is frequently mugged in more aggressive ways on this baldly ridiculous program—by more extensive interruption and group over-talking. But as we cite our accurate guess about that Dems plus-11 poll, we thought we'd invite you to see one of the ways this massively successful imitation of life operates when Tarlov is on the program.   

Tarlov doesn't interrupt or challenge the pro-MAGA four as they take their turns to speak. The interruptions run all one way on this sad, embarrassing show—on this pitiful messaging program.   

Dems were up by 7, Tarlov actually managed to say. In the midst of the cable cage match, the Fox News poll—Dems plus-7—actually did get cited!

FAULTY: Why did David Brooks say what he said?

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026

What Yevtushenko said: Last Friday night, on the PBS NewsHour, David Brooks seemed to say that he wasn't concerned.   

One night before, the sitting president had made a self-ballyhooed national address. How had the speech been received? 

By the time the NewsHour aired, it was already clear that the Fox News Channel was ghosting the president's speech—was pretending it hadn't happened. As we noted in Monday's report, Brooks himself had this to say about the satrap's assertions:   

BENNETT (7/17/26): President Trump once again putting false claims about the 2020 election at the center of the national political debate is where we start, as we turn tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. 

[...]

BENNETT: So, David, what did you hear in that speech last night? What do you think President Trump is trying to accomplish here?   

BROOKS: Oh, subtle. I couldn't figure it out.

(Chuckling)

He was— He's got to get more original in his confabulation. I mean, he's just stuck on this 2020 thing. There's never been any evidence. There's no evidence.   

Even in his role as moderator, Bennett spoke of the president's "false claims." In his reply, Brooks referred to the presidents ongoing "confabulation." 

"There's never been any evidence," he rather imprecisely said. Following which, he said this:   

BROOKS (continuing directly): I think the good news is, he doesn't have any policies to actually ruin our election system, as we heard from the secretaries of state. So we're going to have fair elections in this country.

"We're going to have fair elections," he said. The analysts screamed and tore at their hair. They had no idea why he'd said that.   

Are we going to have "fair elections" this year? The young analysts couldn't imagine why a person as smart as David Brooks would play Pollyanna that way. 

Bennett may have been puzzled too. Eventually, he returned to Brooks with a new question, generating this exchange:  

BENNETT: David, we spoke on this program last night with Ty Cobb, who was the special counsel during the first Trump administration, and he offered an extraordinary warning. He said that he believes that President Trump is laying the predicate for an emergency declaration around the elections.

Do you see the guardrails holding if President Trump tries to use the apparatus of the federal government to intervene more directly in how elections are administered?

BROOKS: I think so. A lot of people have thought that this is a predicate for some future action.

I think, if you look at the things he's tried to do, we're helped by the fact that these are mostly state-run things, so he does not have control. And what isn't state run is usually congressionally run. And so he has tried. The thing he's done successfully is the gerrymandering in Texas. He has rigged elections and Democrats have helped in California.

So that part he was successful at in degrading our elections. But pretty much everything else he's done, through executive order and other things, courts have overruled him. And so I do not believe he will have the power to actually affect our elections.   

A lot of people believe that Trump may try to interfere with the elections, Brooks now said—but the courts would overrule him. And so, in effect, there's nothing to worry about.  

That struck us as an extremely strange assessment. When Bennett turned to Capehart, he somewhat meekly voiced an obvious point of concern:  

BENNETT (continuing directly): How do you see it, Jonathan?

CAPEHART:  Although I am a little concerned about what happens on Election Day.

Congressman Jim Himes was on with my colleague Lawrence O'Donnell last night, and he warned that, yes, what the president is doing is laying the predicate for stealing the election. And he said, for instance, "What happens if they seize the ballot boxes from particular jurisdictions? What happens to the chain of custody?" 

That is when democracy will be at its most tenuous. And, sure, you can race to court and try to get them back, but the action's already done. 

And so I hope you're right that we are going to have a free and fair election this November. But I have a healthy imagination, and I hope that folks who care about free and fair elections also have a healthy imagination and are prepared for any and every scenario that could happen.  

Capehart said he was "a little" concerned about the president's possible actions. Then, he referred to what Jim Himes had said on Thursday's edition of The Last Word, a program which aired right after the president's speech.

Full disclosure! We too had seen Rep. Himes when he appeared on O'Donnell's program. 

In our view, Himes is one of the sharpest members of the House. He'd been followed on The Last Word by Senator Elissa Slotkin, who we regard as one of the sharpest members of the Senate. 

Speaking with O'Donnell, Himes and Slotkin had each voiced grave concerns about what the president might do come November:

Might the sitting president "deploy federal officers to seven states to seize ballot boxes" at midnight on election night? On Election Day itself, might he "send uniformed military or federal law enforcement to take care of alleged security threats around our polls," or to seize voting machines?

"These are things the president refuses to rule out, as does his cabinet," the very alert Senator Slotkin told O'Donnell that night. "The president has made it clear that this is not a joke to him."  

To see the full interview with Himes, you can just click here. For the interview with Slotkin, you can start by clicking here. 

Slotkin and Himes voiced deep concerns about what November might bring. Slotkin described meetings she's held with Michigan officials to gameplan the way to react to various scenarios on Election Day. And no, the courts couldn't stop a determined president from doing such things, not until Election Day was over and massive damage had been done.

Slotkin and Himes voiced specific deep concerns. One night later, Brooks was happy to report that we're going to have fair elections. We thought his presentation was extremely strange.   

David Brooks is a good, decent person. He's done a lot of excellent work. He isn't just a good, decent person, he's also perfectly sharp. 

That said, it seems to us that he may tend to hold himself back in the face of concerns like this. As our nation develops its new politics—the politics which will save us from the downward spiral we're currently in—we'll learn to be sympathetic to possible shortcoming of this and other types. 

We think of Yevtushenko's portrait of who we (all) are as people:

Who we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures...

So Yevtushenko said.