David Hearn is all of us
Don't just let your MAGA friends forget about this one.
So to the great chagrin/embarrassment of the White House and its orange occupant, over the weekend we learned that David Hearn, the former Olympic rower indicted on charges of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, did no such thing.
This was brought to light by (of all the people) Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington/Trump ally who—after initially swearing Hearn was guilty—acknowledged (in my words) he hadn’t done shit. Wrote Glenn Thrush in the New York Times: “Ms. Pirro’s office dramatically reversed course on Friday, not only withdrawing the charge against Mr. Hearn but blasting the Interior Department for the rushed and ‘botched’ renovation, along with U.S. Park Police officials who fed bad information that led her to publicly cite ‘tremendous evidence’ against Mr. Hearn. In the process, intentionally or not, she skated perilously close to contradicting Mr. Trump — and he noticed.”
In short, it was the shitty-ass company hired (in a no-bid manner) by Trump that screwed this up, not a 67-year-old who represented the United States at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics.
And while a large part of the story is Hearn and peeling blue paint, for my money the biggest thing is surmised in this perfectly stated Instagram post …
Or, to put it differently: Why would anyone ever, ever, ever believed Donald Trump? This is a man who said POWs weren’t heroes because they were captured. This is a man who said, when you’re famous, you can freely grab women by the pussies. This is a man who habitually throws people under the bus—including his own vice president, as a noose was set up for his hanging.
There is no decency or morality or need to be kind or empathetic. There is no line between right and wrong. The president of the United State would have been perfectly fine sending an innocent ex-Olympian to prison for 10 years, even though he damn well knew the company he hired botched it all up.
It is, truly, a staggering thing, to have a leader double as the world’s worst person.
A ridiculously staggering thing.
It's all so continuously embarrassing. It's very difficult to navigate as someone running for office when more than half of your prospective constituents are registered Republicans and you never know when the subject of Trump or what is happening in the US will be posed by someone.
On a side note, if folks are unaware of what event David Hearn competed in? It was the canoe slolum. It is, besides gymnastics, my favorite category during the Summer Olympics. I have tickets for the 2028 games and will be going to Oklahoma to watch them. I'm super excited 😆
And yet, here we are!