The August news vacuum

The United States is at war. Prices are making it hard for people to buy food and gasoline. And the Trump regime continues its destruction of the American legal system, spearheaded by an attorney general who acts as Donald Trump’s personal legal attack dog.

Grassley X post

But the New York Times found space and time to highlight the 92-year-old chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s obituary for his 49-year-old vacuum cleaner named Beth.

It’s the type of a story known in the business as a “brite,” a short, amusing story — usually involving children, kittens and puppies. The goal is to offer someone a smile at the end of a news day filled with, um, war, inflation or corruption.

And as the Times notes, Grassley has an ”irreverent style of social media.”

“U willl see Beth no more,” Grassley, 92 and the oldest senator, wrote on social media on Saturday, attaching an image that showed Beth’s electrical cord connector scarred by sparks. “See black that’s from electrical sparks. It’s not safe to use anymore. GOOD BYE BETH.”

The 550-word tribute notes Grassley has often waxed poetic about his faithful electric companion and also once announced the passing of someone’s dearly departed “pet pidgin.”

In the words of Lisa Loopner:

In more normal times, this might have merited 200 or so words. But the post instead came just hours after the Senate, acting on the recommendation of the committee Grassley chairs, confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general following the capitulation of the YOLO Caucus and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy’s defense of his vote as “not black-and-white.”

The decision to devote this much attention to a deceased appliance raises this question for Times editors:

What the hell were you thinking?

While the Times and other major news outlets have done some solid reporting on the Trump regime and its Republican enablers, the “newspaper of record” has also been among the leaders of “sanewashing” the frequent outbursts of the 80-year-old convicted felon who has put his own personal financial and legacy considerations ahead of 340 million Americans he was elected to serve (and not just a handful of the 77,302,580 people who voted for him).

Not to mention deeming the physical and mental health of the 46th president a crisis while not instead asking why he has taken so many of them.

Or wondering why a 92-year-old man who holds a key role in the breakdown of the American judicial system is simply an Iowa corn and soybean farmer who managed to hang onto an electrical appliance for 49 years.

Apparently long forgotten are allegations that Grassley mischaracterized or sensationalized raw investigative files; helped spearhead a witch hunt into Hunter Biden; and released internal documents containing unredacted names of government personnel.

While not holding Blanche’s feet to the fire for doing the same with the partial release of the Epstein Files.

What criteria are involved in determining whether age and a record of accomplishments are important in assessing an elected official? We already know that being impeached twice, convicted on 34 counts of criminal fraud, and found civilly liable for fraud and sexual abuse isn’t even worth mentioning anymore.

Yes, it’s August, once considered the slowest part of the news cycle short of the last two weeks of the year. People, at least those who can afford them, are on vacation and looking to turn off the drumbeat of incompetence and venality of Washington, hoping for a cooling dip in a (non-reflecting) pool.

By offering a paean to a man and his trusty vacuum cleaner helps to make you understand why a recent poll found The Weather Channel the nation’s most trusted media outlet. After all, they didn’t use a Sharpie to move the path of a hurricane.

Can we all agree this story sucks?