Can We Please Impeach Trump's Casting Director?

Is bad TV really better than no TV at all?

During his first term, which the centuries since then have learned to look upon relatively kindly, Donald Trump’s most characteristic praise of his favored military appointees was to say that this or that general looked “right out of Central Casting.” It’s an odd criterion, because Hollywood’s idea of an imposing military man (and we’re talking exclusively about men) has very little resemblance to the unstrutting, often reticent types we’ve entrusted with high military responsibility in the past. Does anyone talk about belligerent, savage Omar Bradley, bloodthirsty Dwight D. Eisenhower, or that insufferable braggart and preening showboat Ulysses S. Grant?

There have been uniformed American glory hounds who fit the movie mold. George Custer, for one, and let’s all pause to admire how good at his job he was. Another George – Patton – was more successful (i.e., not dead) at pulling off the Miles Gloriosus act, but don’t forget it was an act. His brass-hat contemporaries thought of Patton as an odd duck, and if he was a military genius – not in my book, chum – then part of his genius was for overcompensating. If that Mae West rack of bosomial medals and those ostentatiously fancy pistols don’t tell you everything, remember that one of the misrepresentations in the movie Patton was George C. Scott’s gravelly voice. The real Patton sounded as squeaky as Mickey Mouse’s war-loving kid brother.

All the same, I’ve seen the odd movie and TV show in my time – probably more of them than Trump has, not to go all Ulysses Grant on you. So I’m willing to accept the premise that his chosen henchmen – not “henchpersons,” please, with the exceptions of the now departed Kristi Noem, the similarly vamoosed Pam Bondi, and immortal-as-a-McNugget Karoline Leavitt – somehow reflect and/or fulfill an American fantasy of convincing leadership. That’s where things get really batty.

Does anyone, for instance, look at Jared Kushner – destined to star in the Kafka prequel Citizen Samsa, the origin story of the hero of The Metamorphosis in the happy days before he turned into a cockroach – and think, “Now that’s the kind of ultra-qualified, nonchalantly dapper envoy I’ve always wanted to see representing the United States abroad”? Or gaze worshipfully at Pete Hegseth, who believes that war is a continuation of date rape by other means, with joy that the Pentagon is in capable hands at last? Or thrill to the unexpectedly woke milestone of America’s first lipstick-lesbian Vice President? Whatever you think of FBI recreational director Kash Patel (hic), at least his beard doesn’t look glued on.

Then there’s Leavitt-McNugget herself, who apparently got her job as a White House press flack after flunking her audition to play Tuesday Weld’s old part in Pretty Poison: The Musical. Can’t you just hear an aged Tom Joad muttering somewhere in Encino, “Well, dammit – I trust her”? Melania, of course, is the First Lady to end all First Ladies; search as you will, you won’t find a more ideal combination of Pat Nixon, Mother Teresa, and Doris Day.

Things don’t get any better at the Capitol Hill end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Let’s all hail red-corpuscled Lindsey Graham, a stalwart throwback to the Roman days when men were men and other men were glad of it. Quick shout-out here to Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, who gave up his own acting career in childhood after learning Judas Iscariot isn’t a character in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. A nod to Chuck Schumer, living proof that you don’t send Bob Cratchit to do Ebenezer Scrooge’s job.

Few women politicians are profiles in discouragement on a par with Susan Collins, who gets “concerned” the way Casanova got STDs. She’s almost enough to make you root for Graham Platner, whose brain’s slumgullion of what he thinks is populism and everybody else knows is thuggishness can leave the TV audience pining for his missed opportunity to trounce the competition on Master Chef. By killing them stone dead, but you can’t have everything and Thomas Jefferson always said the tree of liberty needs nourishing by fresh blood. He really did, the putz.

That’s just the Senate. The only reason we can’t call House Speaker Mike Johnson a real piece of work is the false premise that he’s still in one piece. The Democratic caucus entrusted the job of leading the righteous charge of the Bud Light Brigade against Trump to California’s now disgraced Eric Swalwell, and Swalwell that ends well or whatever. Okay, so he ended badly, but like I keep saying, you can’t have everything.

We’re talking about a branch of government whose current star example of putting honor above opportunism – and she really is, you know – is ex-Congresswoman and anti-Trump convert Marjorie Taylor Greene. Pray Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t make the swelled-head mistake of running for Senate, since she belongs in the House the way the pḗtroleuses of the Paris Commune belonged on the barricades. That’s a compliment, AOC; don’t mistake it for anything else.

Let’s not even talk about the Supreme Court. No, no, I mean it: Let’s not even talk about the Supreme Court. With the honorable exceptions of Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and sometimes – wonders never cease – Amy Comey Barrett, fuck ‘em. “John Roberts” ought to be the dummy name cops use for a perp who’s still at large.

Well, you know what they say. Snoopy barks, the caravan moves on. But this once proud country has turned into one of those frowzy episodes of The Love Boat where every dimly recognizable B-Lister from Trump on down seems typecast and miscast at once. Fuck ‘em, just fuck ‘em.