When people show you who they are, believe them- Chapter Three

There's a good deal of competition for the "Dumbest Senator" title, but Tommy Tuberville stands on the shoulders of midgets

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

• Charles Baudelaire

Any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek.

• Suzy Kassem

There are far too many stupid people in this world, and yet the world seems to move forward. So it is with arrogance; it’s annoying but hardly a deal-breaker. The combination of arrogance and stupidity in the correct proportions, though, can be incredibly dangerous to life and limb and, in some cases, sanity.

It can be even worse with stupid and arrogant people in positions of great power. For years now, people have had reason to debate who might be the stupidest person in the Senate. Given the state of American politics, it almost goes without saying that it has to be a Republican. The Republican clown car more closely resembles a Greyhound bus in the House, but at least in the Senate, it’s closer to a minivan in size, making the choice a bit easier.

Over the past few months, though, one name has floated to the top for his unique combination of stupidity, arrogance, and pure, unmitigated evil.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday went to town on Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is singlehandedly blocking hundreds of military promotions from advancing in the Senate in protest of Pentagon abortion policies.

“The Last Word” host slammed Tuberville’s “mindless cruelty” which, he explained, is preventing military families from receiving pay raises that would come with the delayed promotions.

Tuberville is the “most disgraceful senator of the year” and “widely regarded in the Senate as possibly the stupidest senator,” O’Donnell claimed.

“And there’s a lot of competition for disgraceful in the United States Senate, where the Republican aisle is occupied by the very worst collection of senators since the last segregationist left the building,” he continued.

Tuberville “lives and breathes cruelty without feeling a thing,” O’Donnell said.

As O’Donnell says, before coming to the Senate, Tuberville has never had to contemplate anything more complicated than diagramming a football play. He was a remarkably successful college football coach, most notably at Auburn University in Alabama. But he’s clearly far out of his depth as a Senator. He’s made up for that by being as evil as he is arrogantly stupid.

Since earlier this year, Sen. Tuberville has placed a hold on all senior promotions within the military, meaning that votes on some of the most senior officers in our military can’t take place. And the Senator prone to proclaiming, “There’s nobody more military than me,” is single-handedly responsible for adversely impacting American military readiness.

The reason for Sen. Tuberville’s hold on all senior promotions? He’s upset with the Defense Department’s abortion policy and is demanding it be revoked. For six months, he’s been a one-man roadblock.

The problem is that Tuberville seems to neither know, understand, nor care that his crusade is having a real-world impact on military families. Plans for moves can’t be made, and deserved promotions and pay raises can’t go ahead; lives hang in the balance.

On October 1st, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, is required by law to step down from his position. Because of Sen. Tuberville’s hold, no replacement for Gen. Milley can be named. So, the #1 job in the entire American military will be vacant. If you were trying to degrade military readiness from within, you couldn’t do much better.

The Marine Corps has not had a commandant since July. It’s only going to get worse, and the worse it gets, the less Sen. Tuberville seems to care about the consequences of his actions. Sure, it’s impacting people, and on some level, he knows that, but it’s not having any direct effect on him, so why should he worry?

Tuberville is the very definition of a sociopath, but when you’re America’s dumbest Senator, all the defense you need is, “What, me worry?”

From Steve Schmidt on July 11th:

[I]n an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, Senator Tommy Tuberville refused to call white nationalists racists. The former Auburn football coach is an embarrassment to the state of Alabama. Tuberville is currently blocking the confirmation of a successor to General David Berger of the U.S. Marine Corps, who stepped down on Monday. The senator has stalled the nominations of more than 265 senior military jobs because he disagrees with the decision by the Defence Department to pay for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion.

The ability to place a hold on a nomination or any piece of legislation is a perk available to any Senator. Most use holds judiciously and rarely. There are some Republicans who use them capriciously, either to make a point or in an effort to get their way when they’re a pronounced minority. It’s often a way to force some concessions when a Senator knows they ultimately have no hope of prevailing.

Sometimes, it’s a way for a Senator to throw some sand in the gears of the legislative process and make their displeasure known. Think of a toddler throwing a tantrum, and you’ll be close.

What Sen. Tuberville is doing takes the idea of a hold to new depths, however. He’s shown himself willing to bring the entire US military to its knees over his displeasure with its abortion policy- something that impacts relatively few women.

Not that this fact matters to America’s dumbest Senator.

There is no current issue in front of the country that speaks to the shattered condition of our political institutions than the immoral, outrageous and dangerous assault being led against the US military by one US senator. Hundreds of military promotions have been held up by Tommy Tuberville, Alabama’s dimwitted Republican/MAGA senator, who has blockaded the necessary US Senate confirmation votes that are required for promotion, which have now reached 98 in the Air Force, 91 in the Army, 86 in the Navy, 18 in the Marines and eight in the Space Force.

Currently, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps have no Senate-confirmed chiefs in place. Hundreds of vacant commands have the ability to cause chaos in the US military, and let’s be clear, that chaos causes death in a business of life and death.

A letter to the American people was issued in the form of an op-ed by the secretaries of the Navy, Air Force and Army in the Washington Post this week that speaks to the seriousness of the issue….

In the end though, this shouldn’t be a political issue. At all. That it is, is tragic, and a sign of a deep corruption and decay within our government. The issue at hand is about the ability of the US Military to fight, and the dignity of our military families.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville has placed his own personal moral crusade above the security of the United States. And he doesn’t seem to care. If that doesn’t make him America’s dumbest Senator, I don’t know what would.

There’s a consensus among senior military and government officials that Sen. Tuberville’s continued hold on senior promotions is as counterproductive as it is deleterious to military readiness. Despite his frequent self-serving claim that “nobody’s more military than me,” Sen. Tuberville seems to neither understand nor care about the damage he’s doing to America’s military.

And the damage will only continue to get worse.

The problem will be on sharp display in coming weeks when General Milley retires. In May, President Biden nominated Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. of the Air Force to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the vice chairman, Adm. Christopher Grady of the Navy, will serve as acting chairman until the blockade is lifted.

Many of the other senior positions will also be filled on an “acting” basis. But acting officials are transition figures — like substitute teachers in grade school. They cannot hire people to staff their new positions. They cannot move into the quarters that come with the job. They cannot impose any long-term vision on the military.

The holds are cutting deep at a time when the military is struggling to meet recruiting goals that would keep the number of active-duty service members at 1.4 million, the strength that planners say is necessary to protect Americans at home and American national security interests abroad. The Pentagon had hoped to offset lackluster recruiting by retaining more people.

The U.S. military is an all-volunteer force. The officers most affected by the holds are top performers who could easily find more lucrative jobs in the private sector — captains, majors, colonels and generals who have already met the 20-year service requirement that allows them to retire with a full military pension. The military manages to keep many of these people by promoting them to more senior and challenging positions.

It may end up that many affected by the holds may look at their options in the private sector and opt to take their skill and experience there. In the private sector, they will almost certainly make significantly more money and enjoy better hours and working conditions.

That level of experience will be difficult to replace. If Sen. Tuberville, in effect, drives large numbers of those top performers out of the military and into the private sector, America’s military readiness could be harmed for years to come.

Stupidity and arrogance have consequences, no?

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