I don’t really have a lot of faith in any politician, when the chips are down I know they’ll do whatever they have to do (including throwing me or the ideals I hold dear under the bus) to hold onto power. But what I do expect from them is to not be morons who do things that will embarrass the entire movement or undercut the cause for no good reason other than vanity or laziness. All too often, however, that’s exactly what happens.
I can’t say I was a fan of Katie Britt before the State of the Union Address and response, or that I’d ever really given her any more thought than I’d given Kevin Cramer (if you don’t know who that is, that’s the point). Cable news interviews about 7-10 Members of Congress on heavy rotation, leaving the other 425 or so scrambling for any attention they can get.
What they don’t seem to realize is national cable attention is not what you need to stay in office or be an effective Member of Congress – just ask JD Hayworth or Mia Love, two former Members of Congress who what seemed like more time talking national issues on cable news than focusing on their respective districts.
The operative part of that sentence is “former,” they lost. They lost because they lost focus on their jobs, which wasn’t to appear on Fox News, but to represent their districts and help their constituents and pay attention to home. Blind, unfocused ambition for its own sake will take a politician out faster than a scandal because voters feel it, and can feel ripped off by it.
That brings us back to Britt. She’s been in the Senate for about 20 minutes, yet she was chosen to give the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union Address. When I’d first heard that I thought she must be good, being only 43 – a newborn in Senate years – I thought she would bring some energy to it. And being from Alabama, I figured she’d bring some conservatism to it.
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What she brought was something that still has me shaking my head.
Biden had been so late, droned on so long and took for-freaking-ever to leave the House Chamber, I was starting to get angry about how late the GOP response was going to be; that people were going to miss it. About a minute into it, I found myself hoping everyone had tuned out already.
I did plays in high school and college, so I’ve been around a lot of melodramatic, mood-swingy people. That’s what I saw in that kitchen.
Normal human beings do not swing from smiling, proud parent to angry, teeth-clenched rage to the verge of tears and back again to each inside of a few minutes. That’s really bad stage acting. I have friends who’ve interview Britt who swear that person Thursday night is not who she is, that she’s normal when they’ve talked to her. Where was that person?
I get the “show business” part of it, it is a performance, somewhat, but it’s not hard to just talk like a normal human being talking to other normal human beings about what you profess to care deeply about.
Britt was picked because she’s a woman and young. That’s what Democrats do. Why the hell was the person not picked because of how they can communicate?
Because Republicans suck at communication. Who the hell can’t message individual liberty and responsibility? How do these people get elected?
Worse still, Britt went from anger to the verge of tears and back to anger again over a human trafficking and sex slave story that not only didn’t happen under Joe Biden, but didn’t happen the way she told it at all. There are horrors all up and down the border, but she had to pick an old one and make up parts of it?
How stupid is that?
All Britt did was give Democrats an easy out, a simple way to ignore every legitimate criticism of Biden in her horrible performance art rebuttal because she didn’t stick to the truth.
The worst part was this stupidity wasn’t necessary – there is no need for specifics when talking about the horrors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women by drug cartels. If you get specific, you risk getting specifics wrong or having the people involved come out against you – brutal cartels can always “convince” people to deny whatever they want, especially when it comes to hoping to keep people who’ve been great for business in office.
Katie Britt was the wrong person for the job. Even if she’d stuck to facts, her delivery was just terrible. That’s not to say she can’t be an effective communicator in the future, but not without working on it and the first step in that is admitting she has a problem.
The best part about the speech was it started long after many people who’d watched Biden lie for an hour and a half had turned the channel because of his annoyingly slow exit. The best thing Republicans have going for them is they’re running against Democrats who are much worse than they are. It’s of little comfort, but sadly, far too often, that’s the only comfort we get.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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