A Newsletter With An Eye On Political Media from The American Prospect
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A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

George Santos a Liar? Small-Time When Compared to His Fellow Republicans


In the party of Trump, deceit is the new common parlance.

**** The revelation that George Santos is not remotely who he said
he was may be the most overcovered political event
<[link removed]> of my lifetime. In a
nutshell: "A Republican congressional candidate got elected in 2022 by
telling a lot of lies." Stop the presses!

And yet the story dominated both mainstream and social media for two
full weeks. I get it. Santos lied in a lot of funny ways. He killed off
his mother twice, at least on Twitter
<[link removed]> (which,
of course, was "bad news for Biden
<[link removed]>"). He
claimed to be "Jew-ish" (and not in the way Bruce Springsteen is
<[link removed]>).
He exploited the Holocaust, etc. Would the Republicans have won that
seat with a candidate who told the truth about themselves? Well, it may
be true that not all Republican candidates lie about their backgrounds.
And the truth might have cost them the seat had it broken in time for
the election. But remember: Republicans do not run on their own
policies, backgrounds, or ideas. They run, exclusively, on the hatred
that the MAGA movement and its slavish supporters in the Republican
Party and right-wing media-sphere gin up against the kind of people who
read (and write) Altercation. And it often works.

Take the case of another rising Republican star from New York, Elise
Stefanik. As The New York Times reported
<[link removed]>,
the same month she hosted a fundraiser for Santos, she also "attacked
'the White House, House Dems, & usual pedo grifters' for failing
<[link removed]> to
address the nationwide infant-formula shortage, a seeming allusion to
the QAnon
<[link removed]>
mythos. In 2021, as a surge of Haitian migrants sought to cross the
border into Texas, she ran a series of Facebook ads warning that Mr.
Biden would 'grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants' to
'overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal
majority in Washington.'" When positioned next to this lunatic, liar,
racist, and conspiracy nut, Santos is practically Beaver Cleaver in
comparison.

These lies are far more consequential than the one about when Santos's
mother gave up the ghost (if he even had a mother). Countless stories
have been written about whether the Republicans will stick with him. Why
shouldn't they? After all, they've all learned to walk away fast
when being asked about the latest crazy thing Trump said. A subset of
this question appears to be whether Jewish Republicans will continue to
invite him to their parties-they won't, but neither will they call
on him to resign
<[link removed]>.
(When you think about it, it's kind of a compliment to American Jews
<[link removed]>
that now gentiles are lying to pretend to be one of us, rather than the
other way around.)

Anyway, the deceit and demagoguery are baked into our contemporary
political calculus. Today's Republican Party, as Ms. Stefanik's
success demonstrates, has been shown the light by Donald Trump
<[link removed]>,
with estimates of around 30,000 times
<[link removed]>
that he concocted lies. There are no lies the GOP will not embrace so
long as they are being told about the many types of people they have
come to hate and fear.

The real scandals here are in the failure of the mainstream media to do
any due diligence on the candidate. The tiny North Shore Leader had much
of it
<[link removed]>
but was ignored in the places that could have made it matter. Long
Island's Newsday is the prime culprit, as it should have owned this
story. But the Times had every reason to dig deeper as well. They were
too concerned with telling us, pointlessly, and incorrectly, who was
going to win
<[link removed]>
than with giving voters the information they needed to make informed
choices about who should win. The sad truth is that most political
reporters write to impress other political reporters; citizens are an
afterthought, if a thought at all. And they have decided that no matter
how crazy, irresponsible, dishonest, and dangerous the Republicans
behave, they will continue to treat the parties as equally legitimate
and credible. One has to laugh at quotes like this one: Mr. Santos
"demonstrated he doesn't have a grasp on the truth,"
<[link removed]>
sadly, quoted straight-faced by a New York Times report on Santos's
first day in the House.

[link removed]

Congratulations also to the Times political team for, in its coverage of
Santos, winning the award for "Worst Both Sides Comparison of 2022" with
this last-minute entry
<[link removed]>.
In it, we learn that Democrats do not always tell the truth either.
Ready? Well, "Joseph R. Biden Jr. admitted to overstating his academic
record
<[link removed]>
in the 1980s: 'I exaggerate when I'm angry,' he said at the time.
Hillary Clinton conceded that she 'misspoke' in 2008 about dodging
sniper fire
<[link removed]> on an
airport tarmac during a 1996 visit to Bosnia as first lady, an anecdote
she employed to highlight her experience with international crises. And
Senator Elizabeth Warren apologized in 2019 for her past claims of
Native American ancestry
<[link removed]>."
(This stupid column
<[link removed]>
by The Washington Post's right-wing pro-torture pundit Marc Thiessen
<[link removed]> belongs in its
own category, of course. But it is at least not masquerading as "news.")

****

In We Are Not One
<[link removed]>
news, well, once again, I regret to say that there's not much save for
the fact that The New Yorker was good enough to add it to their "Best
Books of 2022 <[link removed]>" list after
that list was completed, because the book was not published in time to
make it. So, thanks very much for that. Remember they said "fearless"
and "scrupulous" ...

Logrolling in our Time: Meanwhile if you are going to buy and read one
book published by Basic Books this year, it should be mine. If you are
going to buy and read two, however, may I recommend Myth America
<[link removed]>,
edited by my good friend, the scarily productive Julian Zelizer, and the
profession's champion Twitterer, Kevin Kruse. Its only weakness is
that I'm not in it.

****

I saw what I thought was a nearly perfect Broadway musical over the
holidays: Some Like It Hot <[link removed]>, which
will likely be playing for years at the Shubert Theatre. Like virtually
all sentient human beings, I love the 1959 Billy Wilder film
<[link removed]> upon which it is
(extremely loosely) based, which showcases not only Wilder's
undeniable brilliance as a director but also the much underrated acting
and comedic talents of Marilyn Monroe. This play has neither. And to be
honest, even though it's a near-perfect musical, its music, while
functional, is not all that memorable. What it does have is a smart, fun
"book," made relevant to our world by its emphasis on racial inclusion
and gender fluidity; some wonderful, memorable performances; a terrific
big band; and all of the above joined together with literally
breathtaking choreography.

Yes, it's rather self-consciously "woke" about non-binarism-going so
far as to pause for audience applause when the appropriate
pronouncements are made. But the damn thing is so cleverly written,
acted, staged, and ultimately executed, it's a small price to pay.
(And if Adrianna Hicks, who plays the role of "Sugar,"
<[link removed]>
was not a star before this play, she is one now.) It's two and a half
hours of, as the saying goes, "Broadway magic," and I think even a gay
Jew-ish Republican who twice lost his mother would leave with a genuine
smile on his face (and might want to claim he wrote, directed, and
starred in it). Anyway, if you even like Broadway musicals-and have
the money-you will love this thing. Trust me; no critical race theory
or even thinking necessary.

Bonus: Here
<[link removed]> is
a terrific essay on Wilder by Andrew O'Hagan from The New York Review
of Books, last February.

When I step into Birdland <[link removed]> just northwest of
Times Square, I always feel like I'm in one of those clubs that rich
people are always going to in one of those Cary Grant/Myrna Loy-type
1940s screwball comedies. That such a place is still going strong is a
tribute to my city, even if sometimes it's filled not with beautiful
people in evening dress but tourist families in, ahem, ugly Christmas
sweaters.

Actually, the music and the sweaters (and the movies, of course) are
just about the only things about Christmas to which I do not say "Bah,
humbug." This year, when, for the third time in three years, I caught
its "Swinging Christmas" celebration, sweaters were in, um, full swing.
So, of course, was the music. Klea Blackhurst, Jim Caruso, and Billy
Stritch mixed the schmaltz with the chops and some un-New Yorky humor
that makes their show dependable fun for one and all. After the show, I
suggested to Stritch that they maybe include Tom Lehrer's "Hannukah in
Santa Monica" in the future. He said, "But none of us are Jewish." I
replied, "You're New Yorkers now. That makes you at least part
Jewish." (Note to George Santos: This might have worked.)

This past Tuesday night, I returned to see the first set of a
four-night, eight-set stand by Joe Lovano and his ten-piece "Streams of
Expression" band celebrating Joe's 70th birthday this past December
29. Joe looks like the kind of hipster you'd cast in a '50s movie as
a jazz beatnik, but he plays as if he's incorporated all the music
that's been made ever since, while at the same time never losing track
of either the melody or the groove. Seeing the band's first set of the
stand was actually quite interesting, because it felt as if they were
just learning how to talk to one another, musically, on songs that they
will be further working out for the rest of the seven shows. Sitting in
that wonderful (and not overpriced) restaurant, it felt like this is
what jazz-and New York-should be. More here
<[link removed]>.

And here <[link removed]>'s a whole show by Joe.

See you next week.

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Become A Member of The American Prospect Today!
<[link removed]>

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 12 books, most
recently

**We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel** (Basic
Books, November 2022). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal
Media" column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman
<[link removed]>

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