The Devil Went Down to Georgia and Senator Jon Ossoff Smites Him

 

There's a lot of well ground angst about the failure of Democrats to rise up to do battle with Republican thugs like Jim Jordan, about how the Republicans have tigers in Congress where Democrats send only house cats.

Jamie Raskin, Alan Schiff cross foils with Republicans, but they usually only leave a dueling scar across the odd Republican cheek. 

Jon Ossoff lancinates the heart.

Consider his evisceration of the latest Trump toadie to sit before a Senate Committee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epqdjIIkqnk

It's a lovely bit of predation.

His quarry is Russell Vought, of the OMB. Senator Ossoff ticks through a list of civil servants who had been summarily fired in mass, then rehired when it was discovered these workers actually service and protect our nuclear missiles, or our vaccine supplies and asks if the very act of quickly rehiring those essential workers did not speak for itself, ipse race loquitor ("The fact speaks for itself"), demonstrating such willy nilly actions were a mistake which even the perpetrators had to quickly admit and correct. Oh, my bad.

Ode to Chattel Slavery

Well, I don't know it was a mistake. I wasn't the one firing those particular people, is Vought's answer. But surely, even if you weren't the one who made that particular mistake, you can look at the act and agree firing nuclear missile caretakers and then rehiring them the next day suggests a mistake, actually an avalanche of mistakes were made? 

No, Vought says. I don't know that.

And then Vought does the Trump Tango: It was all Biden's fault.

When Ossoff shifts the question to firing half the staff at the CDC, which is in his home state of Georgia, Vought stammers that the CDC showed itself to be a failure during COVID, implying firing half the CDC staff was justified, but then he slips on to saying the CDC's failures were all Biden's fault. 

And Ossoff replies, "You are not here representing the Biden Administration. You represent the Trump administration. I don't want to hear about Biden."

It's the old Trump Tango, shuffle, well you think we're bad, what about Biden?!?

Poor Vought: He's stuck with just a few dance steps. He cannot possibly admit to a mistake because that means someone in the Trump administration may have been wrong about something. So all he can do is pretend he doesn't know enough to know when someone un-does  what he's just done, that is a tacit acknowledgement of, "Oh, my bad."

Georgia Justice

But this is not about Vought, who like so many Trump toadies is not really worth the time it takes to flay them.

This is about Ossoff, who is combative enough, adroit enough to be a Democrat with some street cred and good vibes. The man can throw a punch. He's not got the baggage of AOC. He's not got the cadence or maybe not the charisma of Bernie Sanders.

Slaying Dragons: Ossoff

But he's definitely got something. If it's not charisma, I don't know what to call it. 

Mad Dog found he could not resist contributing to his campaign. 

He's a keeper.