Occasionally I get reader emails claiming I’m far more critical of Republicans than I am of Democrats.(Okay, maybe more than occasionally.) One came right before the 2020 election when I wrote about an interviewer who asked Trump why didn’t he ever apologize. "That’s because I’m never wrong," he said as only he can with a straight, albeit orange, face.
Trump continued, "I have no problem with apologizing." The reporter replied, "When is the last time you apologized to anyone?" Trump said shamelessly, "I can’t remember," just like he couldn’t remember on which foot he had the "debilitating" bone spur. But today I thought for the most part, I’d switch my criticisms to the progressive side of the ledger. But first I need to define my definition of "apologizing."I’m sorry if your feelings are hurt puts the blame on the recipient. A more genuine statement is simply, "Can you accept my apology?forgive me?" (I suppose it’s not a shock I’ve been divorced for decades.)
That brings me to RFK, Jr. who’s running for the 2024 Democratic nomination for President, although he doesn’t seem like the Democrat his uncles or his father were. In fact rumor has it that he’s even getting funding from Republican donors. In a Republican held Congressional Hearing on Thursday he said he had ‘never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic.’ This only days after suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic was possibly engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people. (Which would would be even more comforting to a Chinese Jew or to a Jew who eats a lot of Chinese food. Sorry about that. )
In 2022 RFK, Jr. inexplicably implied that "Anne Frank had more freedom in hiding from the Nazis than people have today under U.S. vaccination policies." (He seemingly forgot to mention what ultimately happened to Anne.)
RFK Jr.’s 1st cousin, Caroline, John John’s sister, married Edwin Schlossberg in 1986. In fact the couple just welcomed Caroline’s first grandchild, a Jewish baby boy. I gather that given his recent comments RFK Jr. is getting plenty of tsuris, so I’m not going to pile on but I’m tempted.
That brings me to Roseanne Barr who is 100% Jewish and on a podcast recently said "No Jews died during the holocaust but that six million should die now for all the problems in the world they’ve created." Just as I felt a stroke coming on, I realized Roseanne was satirizing so I stopped dialing 9-1-1.
In 2018 Roseanne wrote a disgusting tweet about Obama’s former political advisor, Valerie Jarrett that got Roseanne’s TV show reboot canceled. The tweet read, "The Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes had a baby = V.J." (Jarrett’s parents are European and African-American.") Roseanne deleted the tweet and issued a non apology apology that she had taken Ambien before the tweet. And when that didn’t sell, she screamed on YouTube, "I thought the b*tch was white!"
Roseanne is still bitter about losing her show but is reportedly worth $80 million. Rumor is during her divorce from Tom Arnold, her bestie female confidant noted she was spending a fortune just harassing Arnold," to which Roseanne replied, "Well that’s what the money’s good for."
The last in my unique trio is the most intelligent and evil. I’m referring to the late Roy Cohn who at 27, was Senator Joe McCarthy’s lawyer and hatchet man who became famous during the televised Army-McCarthy Senate Hearings in 1954. The era was known as the Red Scare that was supposedly to rid Communists from within the military and other governmental agencies.
McCarthy’s hearings made him extremely powerful but also led to his ultimate downfall. With 80 million viewers or more than one-half the entire country, McCarthy’s bully tactics, his narcissism and pathological lying, didn’t play well with a country that preferred manners. Soon McCarthy would be censored by the Republican Senate (this is when the GOP were proud of their ethics). Suddenly McCarthy was disgraced and literally drank himself to death within two years at age 48. The cause of death was alcoholism.
Roy Cohn left Washington D.C. and relocated to New York City where he represented Donald and Fred Trump in federal charges of violations of the Fair Housing Laws of 1968 as they definitely discriminated against African-Americans. Fred tasked Donald, age 27, to find a lawyer and thus entered Roy Cohn. A settlement was reached which was essentially a slap on the wrist. Most importantly, Cohn became Trump’s mentor. He taught Trump to never apologize, to deny, delay, to say you won even when you lost and many other pathological traits.
As former Republican political strategist Rick Wilson’s 2019 best selling book said in its title so prophetically, "Everything Trump Touches Dies." Cohn was eventually disbarred and disgraced. He contracted AIDS and died broke and alone and didn’t get a penny from Donald.
Please Google "Lawrence O’Donnell, RFK Jr." Jack is at: jackdailypress@aol.com.
