There's Playing Dumb, And Then There's Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Who's Not Playing
Defending White Nationalists isn't a smart or tenable position, but then the junior Senator from Alabama isn't the Senator from Mensa
We live in the era of smart phones and stupid people.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
No one- and I do mean NO ONE- will ever recommend Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for membership in Mensa. How the man manages to tie his shoelaces in the morning is an unsolvable mystery…which he probably avoids by wearing slip-ons.
The junior Senator from the Yellowhammer State owes his seat in the Senate to two things:
his tenure as the football coach at Auburn University, and
the “R” behind his name.
He was very successful during his time at Auburn:
Tuberville won five national Coach of the Year Awards (AP, AFCA, Sporting News, Walter Camp, and Bear Bryant) following Auburn's 13–0 season in 2004, in which Auburn won the Southeastern Conference title and the Sugar Bowl, but was left out of the BCS National Championship Game. He earned his 100th career win in 2007. Tuberville is the only coach in Auburn football history to beat in-state rival Alabama six consecutive times.
Though he coached at other schools, Tuberville’s 1999-2008 stop at Auburn cemented his folk hero status in Alabama. His political qualifications may have been somewhat south of zero, but because he’d been successful at Auburn, at least half the state adored him.
That admiration stood him in good stead because Tuberville is a tabula rasa outside of football. The junior Senator from Alabama is the poster child for a one-trick pony, someone who made a name for himself in one field but is thoroughly unqualified in any other endeavor.
I offer as Exhibit A the Senator’s ability to tie himself in a rhetorical Gordian knot when questioned on how he refuses to define White Nationalists as racists:
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday told ABC News that white nationalists shouldn't all be labeled as "racist" while also insisting he opposes racism -- tripling-down on controversial comments that have drawn criticism from Democratic leaders and head-scratching from some of Tuberville's Republican colleagues.
Tuberville, a former college football coach first elected in 2020, was pressed on his stance by ABC's Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott, who asked him, "Can you explain why you continue to insist that white nationalists are American?"
Scott was referring to remarks Tuberville made first in May and then again earlier this week, after he was initially asked about military readiness and whether white nationalists should be able to serve.
"Listen, I'm totally against racism. And if Democrats want to say that white nationalists are racist, I'm totally against that, too," he told Scott on Tuesday.
OK, I may be missing something here (I’m not), but isn’t racism the bedrock belief of White Nationalism? And isn’t White Nationalism the belief that the White race is superior and should essentially own and control America?
How is that NOT a racist belief?
Scott followed up to say that the definition of a white nationalist is someone believing "the white race is superior to all other races" and asked, "Do you believe that white nationalists are racist?"
"Yes, if that’s what a racist is, yes," he said.
The Associated Press defines the term as "a subset of racist beliefs that calls for a separate territory and/or enhanced legal rights and protections for white people" -- that is, a kind of nationalism defined by separating or excluding people by race.
Yes, and now my brain hurts….
It’s difficult to believe that a sitting US Senator could be so unbelievably f*****g stupid, but there you have it. I could elaborate, but I think Sen. Tuberville has hoisted himself on his own pétard, no?
And the only Black Democrat in Alabama’s Congressional delegation was also dumbfounded by Sen. Tuberville’s astonishing dumbf**kery:
And while Sen. Tuberville’s “logic” may make sense only to himself, Leslie Wines is correct when she observes that we can’t expect the Senator to condemn himself.
Perhaps not as obviously stupid, but maybe even more dangerous, is Sen. Tuberville’s (who’s said, “There’s nobody more military than me”) blocking hundreds of high-ranking military officers from getting promotions. Why would he do this? Because Sen. “There’s nobody more military than me” is upset about the DoD’s abortion policy.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former college football coach-turned-politician with no military experience, said in a televised interview that "there is nobody more military than me."
In an interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, the senator from Alabama said his father was "career military" and that he personally is "all for the military."
Tuberville's comments arose during questioning from Collins about the senator's decision to single-handedly block hundreds of promotions for high-ranking military officials in fight against the Department of Defense's policy allowing service members to take time off and get reimbursed for going out of state to get an abortion.
That there might be other avenues more appropriate for pursuing his opposition to DoD’s abortion policy seems not to have occurred to Sen. “There’s nobody more military than me.” He went directly from zero to the nuclear option, which is something you might expect from a dumbass Republican Senator like Ted Cruz…or Tommy Tuberville.
What Sen. “There’s nobody more military than me” fails to understand, however- probably because he’s all about emotional reaction over sober reflection- is that DoD’s policy is a readiness issue.
[A]s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said to senators in March, according to Politico, "Not approving the recommendations for promotions actually creates a ripple effect through the force that makes us far less ready than we need to be."
The Department of Defense isn’t in the business of advocating for abortions. It’s in the business of defending America. Period. End of story. That’s all the policy is about. Yet all Sen. “There’s nobody more military than me” sees is “ABORTION!!!!” as a cheap and easy way to score points with his White Conservative Christian heterosexual base.
Now the nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. C.Q. Brown, is warning Congress that the armed forces “will lose talent” over Sen. Tuberville’s blocking promotions.
President Joe Biden’s pick to be the nation’s top military officer warned senators on Tuesday that an indefinite blockade of senior officer promotions could cause a brain drain in the ranks.
Testifying at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing to be chair of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown said the effect of a prolonged hold on general and flag officers — launched by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in protest of Pentagon abortion policies — could have far-reaching impacts on the armed forces that go beyond the officers now delayed.
Brown, in an exchange with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), said the inability of senior officers to take new assignments has a “chain of events” that affects junior officers as well as military families.
“We have our more junior officers who now will look up and say, ‘If that’s the challenge I’m going to have to deal with in the future … I’m going to balance between my family and serving in a senior position,’” Brown said. “And we will lose talent because of those challenges.
“The spouse network is alive and well, and the spouses will compare notes,” he added. “The member may want to serve, but the spouses and the families get a huge vote.”
Politics has always factored into the promotion of senior officers, of course. That’s nothing new but seldom has a Senator so brazenly held the armed forces hostage over his displeasure on a single issue.
Right now, the biggest threat to American military readiness is Sen. Tommy Tuberville. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. A single US Senator is holding the promotion of senior officers hostage, which means that senior positions in American military units worldwide are in limbo. There is no head of the US Marine Corps for the first time in more than 150 years, and that’s not an accident. It’s a direct consequence of Sen. Tuberville’s intransigence.
No nominees for general or admiral have been confirmed for months because of Tuberville, who implemented the hold in order to force the Pentagon to reverse its policy to reimburse costs for troops who must travel to other states to seek abortions. More than 250 senior promotions are pending on the Senate floor.
The impasse has already started affecting the Joint Chiefs. Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger ended his four-year tour on Monday, but the nominee to succeed him, Gen. Eric Smith, is among those caught up in the delay. Smith, who is the Marines’ No. 2 officer, has taken over the Corps on a temporary basis, giving the Marines an acting commandant for the first time in over 100 years. New chiefs for the Navy, Air Force and Army — along with Brown — are also among those who will be held up if the fight drags out.
As I heard Paul Reichert say on MSNBC, what Black kid in their right mind will want to join the military when they realize that stupid racists like Sen. Tuberville still hold sway in Washington?
Yes, any Senator has the right to do what Sen. Tuberville did, but just because a prerogative exists doesn’t mean it should be exercised. In a case like this, there can be far-reaching consequences for a Senator taking action simply because he can and feels the need to feed his ego.
There’s no longer any doubt that Sen. Tuberville is a moron and a racist…not that there was before. At least for the moment, he’s replaced Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as the most hated man in the Senate…and that’s no mean feat. Sen Cruz is a flaming, unreconstructed asshole, if ever there was one.
Previously, Sen. Tuberville may have been suspected of playing dumb. Now everyone knows he’s not playing; he’s the real thing and dumber than a box of hair.
It’s worse than that, though. He’s also a dangerously stupid ideologue.
