Trump's Cabinet!

Hello.

The Cabinet? There it is, above! Unsightly. Cheap. Distressed and distressing. Cluttered with crap. Almost unhinged. Liquored up. Trump chose his cabinet the way mafia bosses appoint their caporegimes; there is one qualification and one qualification only: Loyalty to The Don.

I’m not going to be re-hashing his nominees one by one. You’ve been reading about them for weeks now, and probably, like me, wanting to regurgitate. The highlights are, as intelligence czar, Tulsi Gabbard who is a Russian asset referred to on Russian state TV as '“Our girl Tulsi.” As head of the FBI, Kash Patel, a man who has always shown sniveling deference to Trump and who has vowed to throw in prison — or financially cripple with civil suits — journalists who have been “unfair” to his boss. As secretary of defense, Peter Hegseth, who is accused of chronic drunkenness at work, corrupt money mismanagement and sexual misconduct, and who has tattoos extolling White nationalist extremism. For HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, among other conspiratorial idiocies, believes the Covid virus was genetically manipulated so that Asians and Jews are more immune than others.

You get the picture. (It’s right up there at the top of this column.)

This led me to wonder about other dreadful presidential nominations in history. It turns out there have been plenty of criminals, sycophants, drunks, fools, bigots, scoundrels and lunatics. Will Trump’s picks ever reach this level of malfeasance? Only time will tell.

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Supreme Court Justice Justice James Clark McReynolds 1914-1941 (appointed by Woodrow Wilson).

What he was, first and foremost: a colossal asshole.

For his first several years on the bench, he refused to talk to his fellow justice Louis Brandeis, one of the greatest jurists in American history, because Brandeis was Jewish. He also wouldn’t talk to Justice Benjamin Cardozo, for the same reason. One year there was no photo of all nine justices because seniority-based seating required him to be next to Brandeis, which was intolerable to him.

When Charles Hamilton Houston, the distinguished African-American Harvard-educated lawyer appeared before the court to argue a case, McReynolds turned his chair around to face the wall. He also did not like women. On the relatively rare occasions when a woman attorney came in to argue a case, he would loudly proclaim “I see the female is here,” and leave the room.

He also was an asshole jurisprudentially. He opposed all child labor laws, and all efforts to set a minimum wage.

Not a single justice attended his funeral.

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Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan (1913-1915), also appointed by Woodrow Wilson (who, it should be noted, would not shake the hand of a Black person unless he, Wilson, was wearing gloves).

Thrice defeated for the presidency as a Democrat, the mental bankruptcy of his entire two-year stint as secretary of state can be summarized by one incident. After taking office, it became clear he knew nothing about international affairs, which is kinda the job of secretary of state. So he arranged to get briefings on the various countries with which he would likely have to deal.

This included an exhaustive, hours-long lecture by experts on Haiti; they went through Haitian history, including the glorious Toussaint revolution, Haitian culture, Haitian art, the complexity of Haitian religious beliefs. When it was over, Bryan was reported to have made only one comment: “Dear me, think of it! [N-words] speaking French!”

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Edward Rumsey Wing, Ambassador to Ecuador (1870 - 1874), appointed by Ulysses S. Grant.

At 24, Wing was America’s youngest ambassador ever, and was, by all accounts, a brilliant, thoughtful man. He was a gifted lawyer and an even more gifted writer: His letters exhibit a Lincolnian elegance of expression and clarity of thought. Alas, he was not a very good ambassador because he was an incorrigible dipsomaniac. He drank himself to death at 29, while on the job, at his post, in Quito, Ecuador.

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Acting FBI director L.Patrick Gray (1972-1973) appointed by Richard Nixon.

The bullet-headed Gray was not in office long, but he made an indelible impression, like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

Nixon appointed Gray after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. He sought out a heel-clicking loyalist. He got his man. Eleven days later, the Watergate burglary occurred, and Nixon must have exhaled in relief at his good planning.

Gray resigned as Acting FBI director on April 27, 1973, after he admitted under oath that he had destroyed likely incriminating documents that had come from the safe of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt. Gray — the nation’s top cop — burned them in a fireplace.

Gray’s incompetence likely had one unintended positive effect. His first deputy, Mark Felt, was miffed that he had been passed over for the job that Gray got, but also evidently was appalled at the shoddiness of the job Gray was doing. He decided to furtively approach the media, specifically Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, where he would earn the sobriquet Deep Throat.

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Martin T. Manton, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1918-1939) ALSO APPOINTED BY WOODROW WILSON.

Pound for pound — that is, weighing the importance of the position against the degree of corruption — Manton was probably the most crooked judge in American History. As chief justice of the most important appellate court in the country, he was often called the “tenth-ranking judge in the United States,” just below the Supremes.

Alas, Manton suffered major personal financial losses during the Great Depression. Some people in such circumstances killed themselves. Other sought protection from bankrutpcy courts. Manton chose another route. He started selling his vote.

In dozens of cases, Manton brazenly solicited “loans” — seldom or never repaid — from litigants or lawyers with cases before his court. He is said to have made about $740,000 on those extortionate transactions (that’s about $17 million in today’s dollars.). To carry out his schemes, he hired a sleazy team of fixers and bagmen, plus scouts who identified promising sources of bribes. They acted, literally, as his agents, negotiating for a fee the terms of these “loans,” how they would be paid, what the payer would receive from the judge, and so forth. There was also a concealment team, hiding these transactions through elaborate money-laundering schema. When the payments were in cash, the judge threw it in a safe he kept in his office.

He also had connections to organized crime and is said to have taken money from the notorious gangster Louis “Lepke” Buchalter to get him released on bail. According to an excellent 2023 article in Time magazine by attorney Gary Stein, who wrote the book “Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham,” while Buchalter was out on bail, he killed witnesses who were going to testify against him.

At Manton’s trial (yes, he was busted, tried, and convicted of conspiracy) the prosecutor called him America’s “merchant of justice.”

He served 17 months in prison.

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Brigadier General James Ledlie (1861-1865), appointed by Abraham Lincoln.

Ledlie’s name found its way onto the lips of a president of the United States and in a startling superlative: U.S. Grant called him “The Greatest Coward of the Civil War.”

A drooling drunk, Ledlie had been in charge of a division of Union soldiers during their siege of Petersburg, Va. Among his soldiers were a group of miners from Pennsylvania, who proposed a novel tactic: They would dig a tunnel under the Confederate lines, and fill it with dynamite. The plan was to blow up their front lines, and in the Confederate agony and confusion, storm the city. Ledlie approved, and then retreated to his bunker to drink. When the explosives detonated, the general was still in his bunker, and refused to come out. In leaderless disarray, his men were butchered like beasts.

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Okay.

In our special emergency auxiliary Gene Pool on Sunday, a vast majority of you — 79 percent out of 1,300 votes — either approved of Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, or had no problems with it. Same for me.

When faced with a Solomonic dilemma, the president did what any good father would do: He reneged on a promise and chose love over appearances, and even his own political legacy.

The situation was complicated. The election has put in power a nasty, merciless autocrat bent on bullying and political vindictiveness and lusty retribution against his many perceived “enemies.” This is a new reality, and it comes right after the American public declared articulately, with its votes, that it doesn’t care about ethics or morals or human decency.

It has been credibly alleged that the Republicans’ plan from the beginning in hunting down Hunter Biden for the crime of lying about his addiction when obtaining a permit for a gun he never used — an offense seldom prosecuted — was to get him to commit suicide and thus cripple his father’s presidency with grief and guilt.

The lefty media has been shocked, shocked at Biden’s flip-flop. He said he wouldn’t do it! He promised! There has been a great deal of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching. Even the perpetually fair and reasonable and usually emphatically correct Wapo columnist Ruth Marcus could not resist tut-tutting about it.

Bullshit. All the rules have changed since November 5. All the normal protocols are out the window. Hey,

still lives right here in The Gene Pool.

Only the excellent Post columnist Monica Hesse got it right.

Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Good.

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Now begins the real-time portion of The Gene Pool, where I take your questions and observations and try to respond to them in real time. So far, there are a lot of Q’s and O’s about the pardon, and about my call, on the weekend, for examples of revolting habits you might have.

Send your new Q’s and O’s here:

And finally, if you can afford it, please consider upgrading your subscription to “paid.” I am now spending full-time hours on The Gene Pool; my hourly salary is roughly $12.03. Also, it will free you to feel no guilt every time you see one of these pathetic pleas. Also, you will become my employer, with the power to order me around. Also, you will be fighting fascism. It’s $4.15 a month. Thanks!

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Q: Trump was planning on torturing Hunter Biden for as long as he could. President Biden did the right thing by cutting off Trump’s route. They play dirty - we need to protect our own from them. — Jeanne Marklin

A: Very succinct. Agreed.

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Q: My disgusting habit: I like to smell my farts.

A: This is common. I have given this much thought over the years — often, over tax-deductible meals at fashionable restaurants — and have come up with an ontological explanation. I believe this happens because farts, with their full umami power, are an affirmation that we are alive.

It’s Cartesian: Flatulo ergo sum. I fart, therefore I am.

(Urgent note, for accuracy: The actual Latin word for “I fart” is “Pedo,” but I didn’t use that because it offers an unfortunate modern connotation. )

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Just click on the headline in the email and it will deliver you to the full column online. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

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Q: How does " Reporter Olivia Nuzzi " pronounce her surname? If it's "Newsy," as I suspect, is she an aptonym? — Don Weingarten

A: Inasmuch as this is my brother, I am not at all surprised by the question. Of course, I had already looked it up. Alas, she is NOOT-zee.

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Q: Why was the misogynistic Bill Burr SNL joke, about women presidential candidates needing to “whore it up” a little, getting rid of pantsuits, etc. … funny?

A: I didn’t say it was. I said it failed to get laughs. And yet I think in another time – before the election – it would have been funny, and in a way women might have appreciated, because in the end (you ready?) the butt of the joke was men, not women. It’s not an intuitive position, but think about it.

Burr added “Let some farmer think he’s got a shot.” The joke is that you have to inveigle the votes of the idiot male rubes, so appeal to their lizard brain.

This does remind me of a similar conversation I once that with Gina Barreca about the three tampon joke,” which she found to be hopelessly misogynist, and I found to be the opposite.

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Q: I was in New York in 1965 on a weekend from Army school and at Museum exhibit of surreal art. Lots to see. But immediately saw a nice street scene at night with street lights and suburban to urban homes. So very normal! What was not. Then it was obvious. The sky behind the dark trees and roofs was bright daylight. later I looked it up: Empire of Night. Just amazing to me. Who could imagine it? – G4B

A: Magritte could, and did. Empire of Light, not night. It is one of 30-odd paintings so themed:

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Q: My bad habit: I have a habit of delivering what my boss calls the “Implied Dumbass Look.’ It’s hard to control it because I cannot see when I do it, obviously. Example:

Customer – “Do you think that It might be wiser of me to buy two for $220 than one for $170?

Me: (Implied dumbass look) I do think, possibly, yes.

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Q: I do something very similar to your saliva-swishing when there is music in my head. I make the sound by moving my top teeth side to side across the bottom teeth. I became concerned recently that I might be causing dental problems. Not yet, apparently. But I may have to switch to saliva-swishing.

A: Yeah, that’s bruxism. Not good. Eventually, to appease all that music in your head, all your teeth will fall out and you will look like this:

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Q: When I'm at home I'll lick used plates and bowls before putting them in the dishwasher if they have anything good on them. This includes ones from which my wife and child have eaten.

A: That’s Lexi’s role in my home.

Okay, it’s hard to conclude this is “disgusting,” or at least to articulate why it is disgusting, but it is disgusting. I guess it’s the “lick” part.

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Q: The three tampon joke?

A: Yeah. Gina and I had a fairly long discussion about it in our book “I’m With Stupid.”

It’s a rude joke. This is it:

Question: Three tampons are walking down the street. Which one will talk to you?

Answer: None of them. They are all stuck-up (c-words)

Gina felt it was horribly sexist. I feel it is the opposite. It is making fun of a certain type of male: One with no agency whatsoever, no social skills, who sullenly proclaims that he can’t get none onaconna women are “stuck up.”

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Q: What happened to the adage “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”? The pardon seems a bit Trumpian. If you happen to know the President then you’re golden, otherwise you’re just another face in the crowd.

— Stephen Dudzik

A: Well, Steph. You seem to agree with most tut-tutting liberal pundits out there, so congratulations. Alas, you disagree with most actual liberal people, as evidenced by the poll results.

Q: Biden's pardon of his son has just opened the door for Trump to pardon his friends and family (even himself) for any wrong doing they have done in the past, the present, and the future.

Remember all the 'but what about Hunter?' that Trumpsters were spouting off during Trump's felony trial? Well, it will be a battle cry when Trump starts dolling out pardons to friends and family with the support of a majority GOP landscape on The Hill. "You didn't have a problem when Biden did it, so shut up and sit down when Trump hands out pardons for loyalty and profit.

A: Do you seriously believe Trump gives a rat’s ass what others think, or in justifying his decisions? He didn’t need this precedent to give him cover. He’ll do whatever he wants, with impunity.

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Q: I am a voracious reader. I have 5 books on the go at any given time. I use my public library because I don't have $ to buy books. Here's my eccentricity: before reading a book I get a book cover (FROM MY PERSONAL STASH of CRINKLY BOOK JACKETS lol) made out of very very crinkly mylar or something like that. I tape the book cover on. Then I begin to read. While I'm reading I constantly crinkle the cover. Non stop. Until I put the book down. I am now unable to read a book without a crinkly dust cover on it. It can be embarrassing in public and I am hyper aware to crinkle very very quietly inn public spaces. But still, I crinkle. I've never heard of anyone else doing this. But that's ok, I'm at peace with it. Peacefully, Erin

A: It’s hard to call this disgusting, but it is very, very weird. Good for you.

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Q: If a man doesn't honor his word, what kind of man is he? Biden knew circumstances might change, but he didn't qualify his promise; he made a blanket statement, "I will not pardon Hunter." If Biden lied this time, how many times has he lied before, or will he lie in the future? I'm not surprised, he was always going to pardon Hunter. I know it's politics, and the bar is set ever so slightly above the floor, but still. does Joe have any integrity? Did he ever?

A: To answer your questions, yes and yes. No one has ever faced this kind of blatant wanton vindictive cruelty in a president. Even Nixon hid his vindictiveness.

Q: This is Hillary's emails all over again. Of course this country will now tear itself apart over whether Biden should have pardoned Hunter while giving a huge double-triple-quadruple-gazillion standard pass to everything Trump has ever done and continues doing and directed his cronies and donors to do. He's made a jailbird ambassador to France. The pundits nod sagely and analyze what exactly the effects will be on our relations with the NATO countries. He's putting a 25% tariff on Canadian imports. He's put a lunatic in charge of our medical care system. This just gets them some more op-ed space. But PARDONING HUNTER. There is literally nothing else more important to talk about! Martha Baine, northern Virginia

A: I am with you, Martha.

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Q: I liked Joel Achenbach’s story on the Beatles. But can you explain this sentence?

“The four great American writers of this century, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Weingarten, were constantly drunk.”

A: Ah. I just talked to Joel about it. He can’t recall how that came to be.

Remember that I was the editor of this story at Tropic magazine. I believe Joel wrote it as a joke, intending for me to take it out. I didn’t. It pleased me. We were wild people back then.

It is also not beyond the realm of possibility that I inserted my name.

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Q: Regarding What is Art? Yes, welding can result in art.

Some years ago I had a primary health care provider whose family operated a barbecue business. He did some welding work on the trailer, and became interested enough to start making metal sculptures and added an art career to his repertoire.

I can also say that I have literally bought a barbecue sandwich from my health-care provider.

A: I once bought a car from a murderer. Long story. I found out later he’d served time for a pretty heinous killing. It was a Toyota.

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This is Gene. We’ll end with this because it is so good. It sort of puts a cap on the subject:

I write this after reading several pieces that criticize -- no, criticize is too mild a verb – castigate Joe Biden for pardoning his son, Hunter. Following are links to two of the pieces in The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/hunter-biden-pardon/680843/

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/12/the-hunter-biden-pardon-is-a-strategic-mistake/680855/

The core argument is that Joe Biden, and by extension anyone who supports his pardon of Hunter, has surrendered their moral and legal perspective in favor of an emotional, tit-for-tat dramatic display. They conclude that Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter hurts the Democrats politically by surrendering the moral high ground to Republicans, and that doing so hurts the Democrats politically and undermines the rule of law in general. These are based on the same two assumptions: (1) The average person seriously cares about the rule of law and is deeply disappointed by the pardon; and (2) The average person follows the news and has a long memory in matters of public policy and national politics.

Both assumptions are fallacious (If Bill Clinton were involved, they might also be fellatious.) The past eight years of national politics have conclusively demonstrated that “the average person,” varies greatly, depending upon the media they consume The electorate, and citizens in general, have become ever more segmented in their worldview and the media they consume that nurture and support their worldview (I might write “weltanschauung” instead of “worldview,” but I am not George Will.)

Whoever “the average voter” is, their voting patterns in the 2024 election and in opinion surveys conducted over the past eight years demonstrate that most of them either don’t care about legal and public policy actions, or they quickly forget about those those actions. If they care at all, it’s based on a political identity stoked by whatever media they consume.

The commentators who have condemned Biden’s pardon of his son don’t recognize that whatever public policy values used to be shared by both Republicans and Democrats no longer exist. There is no longer any public policy objective that both parties and their supporters can agree on. It’s a legal, zero-sum game. One party wins, the other loses. There is no win-win. Given this context, Biden’s pardon of his son is both logical and appropriate.

Bottom line: Republicans already hate Biden and the Democrats; Biden’s pardon of his son can’t intensify that hate. It’s already up to 11. Many Democrats who are tired of watching Trump and his Republican supporters get away with breaking societal norms by adeptly using legal and political chicanery will support Biden’s pardon. Only a few people who have supported Biden and Democrats will be outraged for long enough to register their outrage in the 2026 mid-term elections, and their votes will not make a difference. The commentators who are in high dudgeon over Biden’s pardon will be ignored or quickly forgotten.

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We’re down for the day.

PLEASE keep sending in Questions and Observations. I will deal with them on Thursday.

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Thanks for a good talk.