Jack Kelly "Sunday"

Before I get to the rest of this blog post, let me explain the quotation marks in the title.

Before the Jack Kelly's cancer diagnosis, his columns appeared in the Post-Gazette on Sundays and I would blog on them that day.  Now that he's (yay!) a cancer survivor, his columns aren't on Sundays.

But the time necessary to fully debunk the P-G's completely debunkable conservative columnist simply isn't available to me during the week.  So If I do get to a Jack column, it'll have to be a few days late and on a Sunday.  Hence the quotation marks.

Now let's get on to Jack.

Last week, he left a barely transparent hint about what this week's column would be.  Here's the hint:

But through the thickening gloom, a light shines in Fremont, Nebraska. It may yet be possible to save America. About that, more in my next column.

When I read that I thought, what the heck's in Freemont, Nebraska?

Checking with the "all-knowing" (hint: THOSE quotation marks are meant to be ironical) Wikipedia, I saw a few things.

• It's a town of about 26,000 and it's the county seat for Dodge County (pop: 36,000).  Safe to say that most people in Dodge County live in Fremont.
• Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who created Mount Rushmore, lived in Fremont in the late 19th century. 
• In 2010, the town (which is about 95% white) voted to banish all illegal immigrants from jobs and rental homes.

I just couldn't see what was Jack's fuss about this Nebraskan county seat.  Until I saw that it was home to Midland University and that current Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse had once been president of Midland.

And here's what tickled Jack's pickle (politically, of course):

Sasse’s highest-profile slap at Trump came late at night on February 28, when he posted “an open letter to Trump supporters” on Facebook, explaining why he could not support their guy. It was a long, impassioned discourse on American exceptionalism, the role of political parties, constitutional restraint, and other grand concepts that ultimately boiled down to: “he displays no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances… have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word ‘Reign’—like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually.”

Turns out, I was right.  Jack's column this week is an impassioned plea for his readers to support Senator Ben Sasse for president.

Here's Jack's opening:

On the night Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, while other GOP “leaders” were rushing to kiss his ring, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb, posted this on Facebook:

“With Clinton and Trump, the fix is in … Why are we confined to these two terrible options? This is America. If both choices stink, we reject them and go bigger.”

Handsome and energetic, Mr. Sasse, 44, is as solid a constitutionalist as Ronald Reagan, as magnificent an orator as Marco Rubio.

Let me say that I never actually considered Marco Rubio a "magnificent" orator but hey, maybe Jack does.  And to each his/her/their own.

But I am not sure I can consider the guy who was at the top of the Iran/Contra affair to be a great respecter of the Constitution.  Remember Iran/Contra?  The Reagan administration broke a number of laws by selling arms to arms-embargoed Iran and then funneling the profits to the anti-Sandanista Contras and then lied about it to the American People - THAT Iran/Contra.  How does that a solid constitutionalist make, Jack?

The rest of the column is rather silly.

And anyway, I would think that Jack's track record in these sorts of columns is bad enough so that we don't need to take him seriously at all.

Anyone else remember this?  Almost exactly 8 years ago Jack Kelly wrote this about Senator John McCain's possible picks for VP:

There is one potential running mate who has virtually no down side. Those conservatives who have heard of her were delighted to learn that McCain advance man Arthur Culvahouse was in Alaska recently, because they surmised he could only be there to discuss the vice presidential nomination with Gov. Sarah Palin.

Yes, Jack Kelly used his column 8 years ago to push for Sarah Palin to be Senator McCain's running mate and we all know how well that turned out for the GOP.

So tell me again, why should we think Jack's right now?

Oh, and one last thing, Jack.  You have to do your homework better.

You gave your readers a list of what they could do to help out Sasse and his family.  On the list was this:

Be willing to go to Fremont, mow his lawn, take the kids to school or soccer practice, whatever else might make it easier for him to answer destiny’s call. [Emphasis added.]

You do know his kids are homeschooled, right?

Took me about 30 seconds to find this at the Washington Post:

Sasse and his wife, Melissa, homeschool their three kids, Corrie, 12, Alex, 10, and Breck...

Did you not see that when you were writing your column?  Did you even bother to look?

How embarrassing it must be to have such an obvious (though let's face it, tiny) mistake to be found in a column of yours.

Not the first time, though.  And we both know it.

Later, Jack!  See you next week.