CSI: American Carnage (Wednesday, July 31, 2019)
NEW YORK – The Times guy pushes into Langan’s following the debates and sees the Post guy sitting at the largely empty bar. He walks over, sits down, and orders a BrewDog with a chaser. The Post guy says, Hey, you file? The Times guy says, Oh yeah. Haven’t done a cop brief in a while. The Post guy laughs. Ha ha. You’re talking about the exchange between Elizabeth and Delaney, right? The Times guy says, It was brutal. The Post guy says, I think we can blame the victim. He didn’t have to rise to the bait. He didn’t have to start using the Romney talking points. He didn’t have to chide her for making supposedly impossible promises. He didn’t have to tell her to run on things that are workable, not fairytale economics. She comes right back with, You know, I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. The Post guy shakes his head and says, Brutal, I’m telling you. So, what’s your lede? The Times guy says, I played it straight: A former Maryland congressman and presidential candidate was found dead on the stage of Detroit’s Fox Theater Tuesday night, police reported, his body airless and riven with tiny holes. According to millions of witnesses, the 56-year-old John Delaney, a self-styled entrepreneur and darling of conservative news entertainers, slumped to the floor, a look of startled surprise on his deflated face and a boot print on his upturned cheek. “It happened so fast,” said one witness. “We were listening and kind of nodding off and the bald guy was arguing Mitt Romney’s case, and the next minute he was gone. He seemed such a nice man. But Mitt Romney is the kiss of death here in Michigan. You know his daddy used to run this state until he talked about being brainwashed.” The Post guy laughs and says, Yeah. Brutal. Short and probably humane. All of them were badly served, though, I gotta say. The real Romney talking points were served up by Jake and Dana. The Times guy says, That’s not gonna change. Maybe tonight there will be time for them to string more than three words together. The Post guy says, Only if the moderators can crank up Joe and Kamala. The Times guy takes a deep drink from his beer. He says, Oh, they will do their damnedest to enshroud Joe and put him to bed. The Times guy says, The moderators? The Post guy says, The moderators. – July 31, 2019