Let me be the last to say this: Happy New Year! Look, I know it is late but better late than never.
It is the start of a new decade. I know there are those of you who go to great pains to announce that the "beginning of the decade" will be 2021. To this argument, I offer this rebuttal: Shut up.
Looking at it from my history major glasses, decades rarely start anywhere close to the beginning year of the decade. The '40s didn't start until December 7, 1941. The '50s didn't start until Elvis strolled into Sun Records. The '60s didn't start until November 22, 1963. The '70s didn't start until the Watergate Hearings. You get the idea.
It has been a challenging New Year already.
First, President Trump had Qasem Soleimani "eliminated". Soleimani* was "an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, from 1998 until his death in 2020, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations." As former Vice President Joe "Joe" Biden would say, "He was a bad dood (dude)."
This started an immediate dread of World War III because let's face it, Trump doesn't exactly give off the serious, careful, studious vibe we expect from somebody that is going to send our teenagers off to war.
Of course, since Trump did it, we had the Loyal Opposition run to their favorite media sites talking about the process and was an attack from Soleimani really imminent. Well, for one thing, any time you talk about the process, people are going to check out. Most people seem happy Soleimani is gone.
As far as the imminent argument goes, well, some of that falls back on Trump because (now sit down when I tell you this) is not very precise in his language. The phone call to the Ukrainian President was so "perfect" it got him impeached.
However, who really cares? This guy was responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. He deserved being whacked as much as Bin Laden.
Iran responded by lobbing some missiles at an American airbase in Iraq, but nobody was killed and the damage as minimal.
This led to a new conspiracy theory reported by Jonah Goldberg in his G-File.
Suleimani was set up by the Iranians. He was too much of a hothead, growing his own power base independent of the mullahs and making it harder for Iran to get out from underneath sanctions. The Iranian leadership couldn’t stop him from conducting a series of dangerously provocative terror attacks, so they basically gave him to the Americans in exchange for … something. I’m not sure what, but maybe withdrawal from Iraq.
By burning Suleimani the Iranians lose a loose cannon and gain a useful propaganda martyr. The fact that CIA Director Gina Haspel perfectly predicted the Iranian response beforehand suggests she may have actually negotiated it from the beginning.
Also, something about lizard people.
Looming in the background of all of this is The Bout To Knock Trump Out, the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump. This impeachment has all of the drama found in a "Gilligan's Island" rerun except nobody is the Professor and everybody is Gilligan.
If the Democrats were trying to come off as stupider than the 1999 Republicans that impeached President Bill Clinton, they have succeeded.
I don't know much about impeachment, but I do know this: if you are going to impeach somebody, everybody has to be on board. The Democrats simply haven't convinced everybody that Trump needs to be removed, particularly in an election year.
I will note there have already been some very positive developments this year.
One, the New England Patriots will not go to the Super Bowl. For this, we give thanks.
Secondly, Mike Leach is the new football coach of The Missasloppy State Bulldogs. Leach brings a whole new level of insanity to the SEC.
Finally, I can make a solid lock guarantee prediction on who is going to win The College Football National Championship: The Tigers.
*I know Soleimani's name is spelled differently in the quoted Jonah Goldberg piece. Take it up with Jonah.
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