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Schmitt hits the fan in a judicial hearing, as senator Eric Schmitt embarrasses himself with a flawed accusation against Jack Smith. I'll be using their first names since last names are so similar.
First as a small recap, Senator Eric was trying to prove that Jack had secretly traveled to Atlanta to conspire with local prosecutor Fani Willis, who was pursuing criminal charges against Trump for the attempted overturn of the 2020 elections. He asked Jack if Jack had been to Atlanta, and when Jack denied it, Eric accused Jack of perjury. It was made into a big show with them even making a giant poster for the media pointing to text messages showing Jack had watched a joke game in Atlanta between the Hawks and the Golden State Warriors only for things to immediately fall flat when it turns out Jack was actually in Maryland attending a WNBA game Maryland Terrapins and the Iowa Hawkeyes. This has been confirmed with both video evidence of Jack Smith at the Maryland game, and analysis of the stadiums (the specific seats they had mentioned do not exist in the Atlanta Hawks stadiums). Barring a clone, Jack Smith was not in Atlanta that day.
Eric Schmitt had the rollout planned with conservative influencers such as Benny Johnson and Sean Hannity, who have since deleted their tweets celebrating his callout in the hearings. Eric and his associates also seemed to have a planned article in Axios to come out afterwards as a potential 2028 VP pick. Basically, he went all in on making this his moment to shine, and he flopped.
Of course as per modern politics, there is no apology for the false accusation. As Hanania puts it
And as Johnathan Chait jokes, there's a funny nominative determinism to be seen here
I think some of the reaction is overly harsh, but there's also no denying that the reaction to his mixup among the right has been weird. Eric Schmitt was actively being praised on the Charlie Kirk show right after!
But as the community note points out, and as Eric Schmitt was already aware of at the time the text messages did not (and could not) confirm Jack Smit was going to a Hawk's game because Jack was not at the Hawks game to begin with. Of course he's dumbfounded by the claim, he literally was not there.
But time to get started on the overall point here. Schmitt claims his job is to "ask questions" but that's clearly not what he was actually doing. Schmitt wanted to put on a show and advance his political career, not to engage in fact finding. If he was just asking questions, why did he have all the theatrics planned afterwards? Why did he so readily accuse perjury? Why won't he apologize now for the false accusation? And why break protocol like this? It would have saved him from embarrassment if he went through the normal process
Congressional hearings are political theater, they don't serve for fact finding anymore. And why is this? Because they're public. They're on camera, so politicians put on a show. Like reason writer Binion says
The more directly public that politics has gotten, the more it's become a trashy reality TV show, exemplified of course by the trashy reality TV show host president. I live in a pretty red district and one thing I've definitely noticed with many around me is that their political interest is one of entertainment. It's why I'm one of the few people who can even name our governor (Josh Stein) yet alone the local mayor. Local politics are boring, too much sausage making and not enough fun despite having far more direct impact into our life. Eric Schmitt's failure here might be funny, but it's also just another sign of the degeneration of politics in the modern social media era and I don't think that's going away anytime soon. Nate Silver might think this is one of the greatest self owns in the history of the Senate but I say, it's one of the greatest so far. Just wait and see.
Do you ever make threads about democrats acting like retards? There's plenty of examples I can share if you'd like somewhere to start.
I'm not denying that there are plenty of people on my "side" that act like buffoons, I'm just trying to point out that you only ever seem to care when Republicans do it.
Come on. Along one axis or the other, that describes a substantial number, if not the majority, of regular posters. There are very few people on the Motte with credibility to point that particular finger.
Sure, but magicalkittycat seems particularly egregious in this regard. You don't see me making a thread about Brandon Herrera's Democrat opponent being a fat illiterate retard who claimed a photo of him clearly holding up a copy of the Communist Manifesto was actually him holding up a copy of Mein Kampf.
Can anybody shed light on something I saw in passing, about allegations that James Talarico (Democrat nominee running for the Senate elections in Texas) is from a family of slave owners? And the defence being (1) he is adopted and (2) his adoptive family are Italian and emigrated to America after slavery was abolished?
I could look it up myself but I'm not that interested, and I think you guys would have funnier replies anyway. I don't know if I think these allegations are remotely plausible, but Talarico annoys me sufficiently (due to theology) that I don't mind seeing stupid stories like this. Uncharitable of me, I know.
Probably most Southerners are descended from slave owners. What percentage of the current Bundestag do you think are descended from Nazis?
I mean yeah, but by the left's own logic one carries the sins of their forefathers. Shouldn't Talarico step aside for a more deserving person, possibly black, or female, ideally both. Someone like Jasmine Crockett?
He talks a lot about paying for the "reverberations of slavery". But apparently the payments must fall to others, not him personally.
Ultimately I do think this will doom Talarico's chances. He's taking a seat from a black person. And black voters are just not going to turn out for a gay-coded white boy.
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I'm descended from slave owners too, I think most Americans of colonial descent are with fertility patterns being as they are. I'd guess at least half of whites here probably are, it's completely unremarkable.
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I'm descended from slave owners. Is this something that needs to be defended against?
My 7th great grandfather was a refugee in England from the Palatinate before securing passage on The Union to South Carolina.
By the time of his death at 63 in 1792, 28 years after arriving he owned several slaves that he was able to leave to his widow and children. This is a refugee success story.
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Surprisingly haven't heard this one yet. But it reminds me of the George W. Bush housing deed "scandal" where someone found out the deed to his house had a covenant that it couldn't be sold to black people. It had been put there by a previous owner decades before and hadn't been enforceable since the Civil Rights Act and there was a decent chance that Bush didn't even know about it but that didn't stop the media from making hay from it.
Honestly Talarico being descended from slave owners would be a complete non-issue to me if it was actually true. The heretical stuff his pastor says is far more concerning: https://cbn.com/news/politics/james-talaricos-pastor-makes-shocking-statements-no-way-knowing-if-jesus-really
And a cynic might be inclined to suspect that it's all intentional, blue tribe technocrats trying to flood the field with talk about how he's descended from slave-owners (which almost nobody in Texas is going to care about) to distract from the all the LGBTQ/Furry stuff that would seem far more likely to sink his chances.
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