“'Beto' O’Rourke is a booger-eating moron.”
That’s what flew out of Larry Gatlin’s mouth over the weekend on FOX News HQ on Sunday in an interview with Leland Vittert and Kristin Fisher, who seemed somewhat at a loss for how to respond. I, however, loved it. In fact, one reason I’m writing this is that I hope Mr. Gatlin doesn’t regret saying it. Larry, if you are reading this, I want to tell you that if I had been sitting there in the studio, I would have given you an enthusiastic standing-O for daring to offer this observation out loud. It was a fabulous emperor’s-new-clothes moment, in which someone finally voiced the exact thing that I and, it is hoped, millions of others have been thinking to themselves.
(Incidentally, folks, I just saw Larry Gatlin in person a few weeks ago, as he and his brothers were in concert in nearby Arlington, Texas, and my husband –- fellow “Huckabee” writer/researcher Pat Reeder –- and I would not have missed it. We even got to hang out with them in the Green Room for a little while before the show. And what a great show it was! The Gatlins also performed recently on the Gov.’s TBN weekend show. But I digress.)
Gatlin later pulled back a bit from what he’d said about “Beto,” explaining that he might be a little buzzed from too much coffee. But as far as I’m concerned, he has nothing to apologize for. In fact, let’s second it: “Beto” O’Rourke is a fool, an ignoramus, a drooling idiot. There's no "there" there. Listen, I’m a proud Texan, and it burns me to think that so many people here in Texas actually voted for that guy, for Senator no less. Makes me wonder --- just how much DO they hate Ted Cruz? And if they hate him that much, who would they NOT vote for to get him out of office? The proverbial syphilitic camel? No, they’d opt for the camel if it came to that.
Come to think of it, their voting for “Beto” kind of makes logical sense. They want the opposite of Ted Cruz. And since Cruz is extremely smart, they voted for the opposite of smart.
I have fond memories of Texas being firmly in the “red” category. This was Reagan and Bush country. Some of my favorite Republican officeholders have been former Democrats; the conservative Sen. Phil Gramm had actually resigned his seat to run again as a Republican and had won easily. The common refrain among both voters and candidates was, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left ME.” The Democrats just moved too far left.
And now, as Democrats lurch even farther left --- much, much farther --- Texas is being targeted by them as a state they desperately want to turn “purple.” Winning, to them, is seen mostly as a matter of demographics. (In fact, I’m thinking they should change their name from the “Democratic” Party to the “Demographic” Party. It’s all they care about.) With millions of future Democrats flooding in from the poverty-stricken countries to our south and the idiocy-stricken states to our west, Texas is newly vulnerable. The fact that someone as unimpressive as “Beto” raked in millions in out-of-state money and came close to winning here is a cautionary tale. Sharks smell that red blood in the water, and 2020 will be a nasty fight here.
As for Larry Gatlin’s interview, it didn’t start out being about “Beto.” From the beginning, the tone of interviewers Vittert and Fisher was decidedly anti-Trump. They first asked him if Trump perhaps “got a little ahead of himself” by saying the Mueller report had completely exonerated him. Not really expecting that sort of question, Larry came up with a great word on the spot –- “Trump-ese” –- to describe how the President sometimes expresses himself. He also offered up a colorful Texas slang expression that I, a Texan since age 4, have never heard in my life, but it’s great: “Don’t let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird rear end.” (Picture this and the meaning will become clear.) Gatlin has been friends with Trump for 40 years and acknowledged that this saying occasionally applies to him.
But he challenged the idea that Trump hadn’t been cleared, paraphrasing Mueller’s report as saying, “Hey, we didn’t find anything. Deal with it.” To illustrate the unfairness of Trump’s attackers, he turned the issue around, asking Adam Schiff, “What have YOU been doing for the last 30 years; let’s see YOUR financial statements.”
Kristin Fisher asked him about what she characterized –- wrongly –- as “revenge politics”: whether it was wise politically for Trump to delve into the origins of the Trump/Russia investigation. (That is not “revenge politics,” Kristin; that is JUSTICE.) Larry didn’t miss a beat: “Sure. Don’t mess with success.”
It was then that they got into a discussion of border security –- and “Beto,” whom he also characterized as “an empty shirt.”
But the media are giving “Beto” a pass. Remember when George W. Bush was first running for President, and all the commentators pondered whether or not he had the “gravitas” for that office? It was something they all picked up on; I don’t know who said it first. Well, if you’ve seen “Beto” in action on the campaign trail, you know: compared to him, George W. Bush had the gravitas of Winston Churchill.
But as vague as “Beto” has been on numerous issues, he’s rock-solid on border security, in that he doesn’t want any. Not ANY. No ICE, no restrictions, no barrier of any kind. In effect, no border. In the words of Paul McCartney, “Open the door, and let ‘em in.” As it happens, Gatlin called him a booger-eating moron on the same day that reports were coming in from El Paso of the border being completely overwhelmed by migrants.
Former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan reiterated reports from the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner that the border presents both a security crisis and a humanitarian crisis. Mexico is not cooperating in dealing with migrants from Central America. Another caravan is on its way. The President is threatening to close the border. In February, 76,000 migrants were detained; that’s the highest number in 12 years. This year, over a million are expected to cross the border, and this time it’ll be different than it was during previous influxes, as an estimated 65 percent will be allowed to remain unless current laws are tightened, and they won’t be under Democrats.
Anyone who looks at this situation --- and “Beto,” being from El Paso, can surely see it –- and wants to do away with borders is one of three things: 1) in total denial of reality, 2) hoping to destroy our country, or 3) so dumb that he’s being controlled by people who hope to destroy our country. I’m thinking in that “Beto’s” case, it’s most likely the third possibility. Perhaps he got hit in the head with a skateboard and suffered permanent brain damage. Or he ate some dirt with lead in it.
Anyway, I want to thank Larry Gatlin for his bluntness about “Beto” O’Rourke. In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” all it took was one little boy blurting out the truth to make everybody see it. But in 2019, with dishonest politicians and partisan media pushing false narratives and slick agendas, it may take literally millions of us speaking up to shake others from their denial.
I’ll close with a line that Gatlin quoted during his interview. It’s from Saul Bellow: “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
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