Jeffrey Blehar of National Review Online focuses on one of the most objectionable congressional Democrats.
Democratic congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (of Texas’s Dallas-based 30th Congressional District) is back in the news again, and once more for the only reason she ever makes news in the first place: She is behaving appallingly in public. … [A]t the start of a speech to the Human Rights Campaign, she paused to deplore her own state’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott:
“Thank you so much, Morgan, um, because we in these hot-ass Texas streets, honey, um [audience chuckles] um . . . Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there, come on now!” …
… For those unaware, Crockett’s jab at Abbott as “Governor Hot Wheels” is a reference to the fact that he has been limited to use of a wheelchair for over 40 years, after being paralyzed from the waist down after a freak accident (a tree fell on him while he was out jogging). It was truly a classy moment for her, only the most recent in a series of escalating plays for public attention (and the affections of enraged Resistance Democrats). Little more need be said about the tastelessness of her words; I am more interested in the transparent self-promotional strategy underlying it. …
… [I]mmediately after reaching federal office, she took to the publicity stunt style of politics, now so prevalent among the House’s most obnoxious figures, in a cruder and more clumsily calculated way than even that of her closest Republican analogue, South Carolina’s perpetually spotlight-hungry Nancy Mace.
It is the artificiality of her attempts to spark outrage that makes them fall so weirdly flat. …
… When Mace does something embarrassing, I cringe because we are on the same team. When Crockett does this, I can only applaud and happily encourage her to carry on. Let’s go, Jasmine! It’s time to escalate! Let’s see how you can top this one — and I hope every voter in America is watching when you do.
