Sunday Bloody NYT Sunday: The Edition That Made Us Feel Good In That Special Way

For some, reading the Sunday New York Times is the ultimate in masturbatory opulence. Would you like to learn about how private jets are getting more affordable because they are now in the reach of super affluent people instead of small-country-owning affluent people? Sure, why not! How about reading how the rich buy $2.4 million houses and then squabble over $750 , because they're just like us, if we were jerkwad tightwads? Howzabout some unholy Google Glass/modeling mashup thingy from New York Fashion week where you can see a picture of Google founder Sergey Brin attired in his best shady/comical Eastern European gangster gear? If none of these completely unattainable candyland fantasy activities please you for your Sunday self-pleasure, perhaps you are a Republican and you would like to fap to the perennial, but still super-sexy, fever dream of impeaching Bamz that we talked about only a few days ago? 

Representative Kerry Bentivolio, a freshman Republican from Michigan, has a legislative dream. It is not to balance the federal budget, or find a way to help his ailing state or even take away money from the federal health care program, a goal that has so animated many other Republicans this summer.

Rather, Mr. Bentivolio told constituents, it is to put in motion the impeachment of President Obama. “If I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true,” he said this month.

It's good to have goals! Dream big, little frosh with the big name. Someday your name might be in lights as one of our dumbest Congresscritters!

The actually really surprising world-tilting-sideways part of this never-ending impeachment story is that Maureen Dowd wrote a semi-funny column about it and does not mention Anthony Weiner nor does it seethe with unbridled lust/anxiety/hate/jealousy about the Clintons, SO WEIRD RIGHT? Dowd actually tips us off to the fact that the incredible Mr. Bentivolio has a few little problems with being grounded in reality-based thinking. Like the part where he thinks he is Santa Claus:  

“I have a problem figuring out which one I really am, Santa Claus or Kerry Bentivolio.” [...] He’s been playing Santa Claus — as part of a business he started 19 years ago called Old Fashion Santa — with his own six reindeer. “To project authenticity, he’s even sought clearance from Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Mount Clemens to fly his sleigh in its airspace on Christmas Eve,” Kathleen Gray wrote in The Detroit Free Press.

He told National Review that he takes being called crazy as a compliment, so “it didn’t really bother me when people were saying, ‘That guy’s kooky because he has reindeer.’ No, they’re kooky because they don’t have ’em.”

We're trying to think of some sort of riposte to that, but we're too open-mouthed to really pull it off. If the measure of "kooky" is "not possessing reindeer, believing we're Santa, and seeking clearance for our imaginary sleigh" then we are cool with kooky.

Gotta give it to Dowd. When she gets her dander up, her full-on hate on, she is ON IT and has used her no-doubt terrified underlings to dig up everything awesomely terrible about Bentivolio. He may or may not be a 9/11 truther. He is for sure, however, a mean-spirited petty little tyrant:

The Free Press reported that Bentivolio, no Edmund Gwenn in “Miracle on 34th Street,” left a teaching job in 2011 “after complaints he bullied students, even telling one class on its first day that his goal was to make all the students cry once during the year.”

Impeaching the president, making children cry. These are not goals most people have, but this Santa Claus cosplay dude does not sound like most people.

Also, too, can we talk again about how confused we are to be quoting a MoDo column with something approaching appreciation? We feel funny in our stomachs.

Bored of the same old same old "impeach Obama" make believe? Not a conservative creep? Then you'll probably want to head on over to the front page and read the Ruth Bader Ginsburg profile -- unaccountably, this lady-justice profile is not in the Style section -- in which she goes all Jennifer Hudson and says aw HELL no she is not stepping down because this court is some activist bullshit right here and also too she is the most badass little old lady ever:

Justice Ginsburg has survived two bouts with cancer, but her health is now good, she said, and her work ethic exceptional. There is no question, on the bench or in chambers, that she has full command of the complex legal issues that reach the court.

Her age has required only minor adjustments.

“I don’t water-ski anymore,” Justice Ginsburg said. “I haven’t gone horseback riding in four years. I haven’t ruled that out entirely. But water-skiing, those days are over.”

If the thought of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tiny, adorable, attired in full Supreme Court regalia and water-skiing does not fill you with joy, you are a monster in human form. Seriously, do not not read this profile. You will regret it and your fancy friends at brunch will be all like "Hey did you read that amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg profile" and you will have to be like "naw mang because I have no soul" and then you will have no friends ever again.

Did we miss the Trump University lawsuit? Haha our entire lives would be a lie if we missed the Trump University lawsuit wherein the living breathing walking talking raccoon fur tail hat got hisself sued by the New York Attorney General for how fucking shady his "University" is. However, we don't want to hide Trump's light under the bushel that is the Sunday NYT update, so expect a full, loving treatment of this post tomorrow most likely because how could we not?

Man, we're feeling so good about Ginsburg and so schadenfreude about Trump and so confused but turned on by Maureen Dowd that we're probably ready for the Opinions page. Let's open it up and see what Thomas Friedman has to say about foreign policy. Oh Christ, good feeling gone daddy gone:

If you follow the commentary on American foreign policy toward Egypt and the broader Middle East today, several themes stand out: People in the region argue: “Whatever went wrong, the United States is to blame.” Foreign policy experts argue: “Whatever President Obama did, he got it wrong.” And the American public is saying: “We’re totally fed up with that part of the world and can’t wait for the start of the N.F.L. season. How do you like those 49ers?”

Oddly, these trenchant observations are not attributed to Egyptian cabdrivers who have had the misfortune to ferry Friedman around. That's probably because they are all ridiculous made-up things that ignore what prolly most people are thinking about Egypt which is "my God, it is really awful and impotence-making to watch such a human tragedy play out in real time especially since there seems to be no good solution." After making up quotes that make everyone sound terrible and stupid just like him, Friedman goes on to write for so long that nations rise and fall, stars die, and glaciers move across the earth. On the way, he namechecks every Middle East country he can think of while explaining that we should incentivize, coach, model, and police other countries but then maybe still they will not do what we want or maybe they will? We don't know because we drifted off.

There is no Ross Douthat to mock, nor any Frank Bruni to lovehate today, so we might be able to recover a shred of our earlier joy. Maybe go read that Ginsburg profile again so that we can feel tingly all over.

[ NYT ]