My bad.
In my attempt at being all too clever with a subtle, written wink, I was so subtle at the end of the previous blog post–which I’m reposting in full with a different ending–that readers didn’t get my drift, as they say.
Because I don’t have an editor to look over my shoulder or point out ruts I get into, I’ve always had a bad habit of blogging on the fly, not always letting a post sit for a while and revisiting it with clear eyes to make sure my meaning is clear to somebody who takes the time to read what I have to say.
I assumed that readers at the end of the post–as it originally appeared–would understand that I was citing Cornyn as my hero for a day, because I crouched what I wrote originally in his own weaselly language: with a maybe, and a sorta.
I thought readers would get, after reading all that went before it, that I was calling him my “sorta” hero with a wink and a nod, as if to say, “Get it?” He’s not really my hero.
Had I let it sit and looked at it again with fresh eyes I probably would have been more unequivocal at the end.
What I meant to say is that Cornyn is just another gutless, Republican ass who is too terrified of Trump and his red-state voters to be honest.
He is in no way, except in a sarcastic way, my hero for 10 seconds, and never will be.
I’m sure his family probably likes him though.
I sure as hell don’t.
Sadly, Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez died all too young in service to his country. To make a sad situation worse, his tragic death was exploited for political gain. R.I.P.
I can’t sing songs of hosanna for Texas Sen. John Cornyn enough today.
He is my Texas hero for the day.
Not that I normally agree with Cornyn on many things, since he is a member of a once great Grand Old Party that has thoroughly lost its moral and ethic compass. (Which ain’t to say that the other party is the party of saints.)
I have to give Cornyn his due today because he is the only Republican leader who has admitted that Republicans from the White House down to the statehouse of Texas, along with the leading purveyor of fake news Breitbart, were dead wrong about how a young Texas Border patrol agent died.
Actually, Republican leaders who lie with impunity like Donald Trump, the other Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have been insisting for months upon months that the Texas Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez was murdered by “nasty, nasty” foreigners who sneaked across the border into America.
They claimed this about the agent with no evidence whatsoever to back up claim.
Never mind that the acting head of Border Patrol at the time suggested in a memo to agents that the death was from an accidental fall, noting that there was no evidence to suggest any foul play.
Never mind that Culberson County Sheriff Oscar Carrillo, who was on the scene that night, told the Dallas Morning News two days later that the evidence he saw was “very consistent with a fall.”
The sheriff’s theory and that of the Border Patrol’s own leader didn’t fit the Republican need for a sensational murder in order to pump up support for Trump’s border wall.
(Trump, by the way, tweeted and repeated the big lie that Martinez was viciously murdered, citing the need for his Great Big Beautiful Wall. One might surmise that he gave not one damn what his own Border Patrol leader and the sheriff on the ground said, or that he had any sympathy for the dead agent. He made the death all about his damn wall because that’s what he does: makes everything about him and his wants.)
The aforementioned Republicans, and their shameless “news” agents at Breitbart, have spread the blatant lie about the agent’s death as far and as wide and as long as they could since it happened Nov. 18.
Sean Hannity and the Republican Propaganda Machine at Fox News had a field day with it. I’m sure they will be correcting the record for viewers, but I’m not holding my wind.
* * *
Fox, like Trump and all the Republican leaders who now have egg on their faces, are being loudly silent now that the investigation is over and done and the ruling is accidental death.
In typical Republican fashion, they won’t apologize for spreading clearly false information.
Nobody will come forth and set the record straight.
No. In fact, amazingly, Abbot and the state of Texas still have a reward posted for Martinez’s phantom killers!
Which leads us back to Sen. Cornyn, who has backed off the Big Lie.
“Maybe it’s a cautionary tale that all of us need to take a deep breath when things like this happen and realize that we don’t have all the information and wait until we get a little more information before reaching conclusions,” Cornyn said.
OK, so it’s not exactly a full-throated apology for misleading the Martinez family and all of us American people and the world.
The Senator’s statement is full of wobbly political verbiage with a reference to it maybe being a cautionary tale.
It might have received national attention had Cornyn called a press conference and stated emphatically that the Republican Party, his party, got this dead wrong and needs to stop politicizing people’s deaths for political gain.
He might have received national attention had he said he promises that he will try to be more cautious and is urging his colleagues to stop the political games with tragedies.
But with the Republican bar being as low as it is, I’ll take what Cornyn has said.
In the World of Republican Liars and Weasels, this has about a millimeter of forthrightness to it.
Which makes Big John is my hero today!
But not really.
Not at all.
He is no hero of mine.
Cornyn likes to come across as the dignified, reasonable Texan, but there is no coming across as dignified or reasonable if you are as scared of Donald Trump and Trump voters as he obviously is.
By the way, here’s something God said for Republicans everywhere to think.
THOU SHALT NOT LIE.
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