No one in politics gets football

Fumble! Everyone is dropping the ball when it comes to mixing sports and politics. President Joe Biden tried to relate to former Democratic senator Martin Heinrich with a ham-fisted football reference, telling him, “I’m glad I was a flanker back. I’m glad I didn’t have you on the other side as a tight end.” 

Unfortunately, the term “flanker back” is only known to anyone under the age of eighty as a wide receiver. Plus a flanker would never be squaring off against a tight end, since they’re both offensive positions. Oh, Uncle Joe! 

Meanwhile, one of Biden’s potential 2024 opponents, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, clearly should have stuck to baseball. The DeSantis campaign’s new “game plan” ad features a laundry list of football no-nos. There are only ten defenders on the field, two of which appear to be offside, and an illegal formation on the part of the offense. Perhaps another attempt to out-Trump Trump, who is currently fighting off three indictments for his own alleged criminality. 

Clay Travis, the guy who started a sports website called Outkick the Coverage and used to commentate for Fox Sports, didn’t fare much better. His new book, American Playbook, which is meant to be a guide to beating the Democratic Party, also depicts an illegal offensive formation on the cover. Travis only has six players on the line of scrimmage, meaning the GOP’s attempts at winning back the country will immediately suffer a five-yard penalty after being flagged for too many men in the backfield. A preview of the 2024 debate stage perhaps?

Inside the Iowa State Fair drama

It wouldn’t be the Iowa State Fair without some old-fashioned heckling. Ostensible Donald Trump supporters were shouting that “Pence is a traitor” as the former vice president perused the various fried foods. 

Pence, for his part, disagrees. During a Fair Side Chat with Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, he spoke of his pride of what he and Trump accomplished… until the fateful day where some Trump supporters stormed the Capitol hoping to hang the veep.

Trump, meanwhile, is set to make a spectacular entrance to the fair on Saturday, flanked by a legion of Floridian members of Congress who have endorsed him. But he’s eschewing the kind of popular retail politics for which Iowa is famous. Even presidential candidates that no one has heard of, like Ryan Binkley (?), are sitting down with Reynolds for free air time with voters. There’s no downside to talking with Reynolds, a governor whose approval ratings would make Bashar al-Assad jealous — but Trump’s state fair strategy is to try and blow everyone out of the water, much like he did in 2015 when he arrived in a helicopter. He’s currently in a tiff with Reynolds, because he suspects she’s in the tank for her fellow governor, Ron DeSantis. Iowa voters wanting some personal time with the former president are currently caught in the crossfire…

Alexi McCammond triumphs over cancel culture

Cancel culture, as dictated by the internet’s holier-than-thou scolds, used to work thus: we find something we don’t like about you, we tell everyone about it, you apologize, or you get fired, you go away forever. No forgiveness, no contrition, no way back. So it’s heartening to see Alexi McCammond bucking the trend, starting a new gig this week as an editor on the prestigious op-ed desk of the Washington Post.

McCammond, you may recall, was an Axios reporter covering Biden. Then she started dating Biden campaign press sec TJ Ducklo and was pulled off the Biden beat. She was about to take up a cushy Condé Nast gig as the new editor-in-chief at Teen Vogue… until other left-leaning journalists resurfaced some unpleasant tweets McCammond had posted as a teenager about Asians and gay people (can you believe a high-schooler would use the word “gay” pejoratively? The horror…). McCammond apologized and resigned before even taking up her new post.

But rather than vanish into the ether, McCammond, following her apology, has rebuilt her career. She returned to Axios as a political reporter and is now making the step up to the Post. Cockburn applauds her — and hopes that people on the right and center who have also found themselves unfairly canceled will be shown the same grace in the years to come. A man can dream, right?

Just when I thought I was out…

The Cuomo family, you may recall, doesn’t like it when people make mafia jokes about them. Remember when Chris became embroiled in an altercation after a drunk guy in the Hamptons called him “Fredo,” claiming it’s “like the N-word” for Italians?

Well, a story in the New York Times this week suggests the moniker might suit some Cuomos. Describing a collective of women online who defended New York governor Andrew Cuomo from several accusations of sexual impropriety, the Times’s Nicholas Fandos writes of its close involvement with Andrew and Chris’s sister Madeline. “Four of the group’s current leaders said in interviews that even as their work appeared organic to the outside world, Ms. Cuomo… began privately exerting control. Starting just weeks after the group was formed, she steered its volunteer activists… to prop up her brother and hound his accusers ever more aggressively.” Madeline insisted to the NYT “that her brother played no role.”

Operating a shadowy influence network to shield “the boss” from allegations of being on the wrong side of the law? Don Corleone would be proud, Madeline…

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