Bevin’s servile toadies, McCain slur very GOP... NBA team snake oil

May 16, 2018 at 10:39 am
Bevin

Have you been giving Matt Bevin legal advice?

Look, I know we have to come up with convoluted openings into this “conversation,” but I expect better from someone who thinks of himself as Louisville’s answer to Edmund Burke. Why on Earth would you think that?

It’s obvious. Bevin’s using precisely the same courtroom strategy you employed so effectively in your own brush with justice last Christmas: Be an arrogant prick, insult the beak and portray yourself as a loathsome boor. The good news for all decent people is that it’ll work out as well for Bevin as it did for you.

Small claims can be brutal. But at least I waited until I was actually in court to be a dick about it.

Before, during — doesn’t make much difference. When it comes to justice, if you’re going to insist on being a dick — which is your MO, so let’s assume you are — the only appropriate time is after. Bevin doesn’t know that either, of course, because he’s so used to being surrounded by servile toadies he can’t even begin to fathom a world in which he isn’t the world’s cleverest person with all the answers.

The best legal advice I ever received came from my uncle, a solicitor in Scotland, who advised me to do everything in my power to settle out of court — because in court you never know what you’re going to get.

Solid advice, which, of course, you promptly ignored.

Exactly. Advice becomes good or bad only with hindsight, and, with hindsight, I wish I’d listened to my uncle. Bevin should do the same thing, but he can’t because of the whole cleverest-person-in-the-room thing. He’s going to lose this takeover of JCPS, partly because of his arrogance, and partly because it’s crystal that Lewis fudged the recommendation on his orders.

That certainly appears to be the case, and, while we’re on the subject, let’s give Joe Gerth a shout-out for doing some quality sleuthing and journalism. If Bevin’s kids went to some underperforming JCPS school, which by the law of averages must exist, I’d be more sympathetic. But I suspect that neither he nor any of his donor cronies would be seen dead sending their pampered sprogs to one.

Be Best, as a certain ex-escort-cum-branding expert might say. Moving on, however, even I am kind of shocked that our esteemed governor hasn’t condemned those in his own party who’re taking the piss out of John McCain while he shuffles off his mortal coil. In good PR terms, the easiest of unopposed goal-line tap-ins.

Can’t be that easy, because to my knowledge nobody in the GOP has done it because this is who they are. The more callous and cruel you are, the more you belong. And I might be able to generate a tiny shred of respect for McCain if he’d use his last few weeks of life to leave what his party has become, but let’s be honest, he won’t. And frankly, if you don’t leave the GOP, you condone it and all the venality it represents.

Can’t disagree with that assessment. None of them has left the party, so we can only assume they’re all OK with what’s being served. That said, and taking sporting advantage of an earlier metaphorical segue, I see the NBA debate is back... again. Best professional sports league in this country, in my humble opinion.

If we take into account that Major League Soccer is about the same standard as British pub league football, you’re probably right. I don’t particularly care for it, as you know, but if it reduces college basketball’s degenerate influence on this city, they can sign me up for a pair of season tickets right now.

Won’t cost us a brass farthing according to the snake-oil salesman who’s pushing it. So I’m fully on-board and looking forward to welcoming LeBron to Louisville. Greatest player of all time and an infinitely better person than the other bloke. And yeah, what you said: Bugger UofL and its insidious influence.

It’s not going to happen, though, not when you and that old spiv Dan Issel are the only two people in the state who want it.

I’ll tell you what I really want: I want Don Blankenship to move to Kentucky and take Mitch on, mano a mano. Like Disraeli against Gladstone, but with coal and coke.

Killing a bunch of miners and then running as the anti-McConnell in West Virginia made about as much sense as your insult-the-judge courtroom strategy. Slightly miffed that Blankenship lost the primary, though; he’d have provided rich entertainment — although I remain confident that China -person-loving Mitch verses tactical-genius Bevin will come close.

Primaries themselves are an incredible waste of money and energy, I have to say. Millions of dollars spent across the country just to get a name on a ballot, further corrupting the process and ensuring that two candidates whom most people don’t want to vote for are the only two on it.

I hate to be priggish about Blighty, but I do love the tournament melée nature of our elections and the ritual public humiliation as results being read out live to the baying mob whilst the candidates are on stage. The defeated, some of whom are literally losing their livelihoods in that moment, just have to grin and bear it. Plus you actually end up with some form of functioning governance — unlike here, where the entire system goes tits-up because nobody actually thought through what would happen if one side decided not to work with the other side.

Nostalgic stuff. Maybe we should take the advice of our fans in the LMPD and fuck off back to England?