foolish watcher

Mitt Romney’s faith led him to do the right thing. It shouldn’t be remarkable, but we are living in the Darkest Timeline.

Therese Odell
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Yesterday, ahead of the historic Senate vote on the Impeachment Trial of Donald Juilty Trump, Senator Mitt Romney took to the floor to explain why he would break from his party and vote to convict the President for Abuse of Power, making him the first senator in American history to vote against a president in his own party. His speech was powerful, emotional, and important. It also was a profound statement on faith, one that left this agnostic moved.

I’m not a practicing Christian for reasons that I won’t go into because, honestly, you don’t care. But as someone who has an observer of Amerian Christianity as it has been publicly practiced for the past 40 something years, it has been a source of never-ending frustration to watch Christians fail to practice what they so stridently preach and often try to force upon others through our laws and our government. And though I understand the argument that we are all sinners, that we will all from time to time fall from grace, and that the most Christian of values is forgiveness, let me tell you, it was hard to grow up in the 80s and 90s with the likes of Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Baker, and other evangelical TV swindlers, and Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich, and Dennis Hastert and not come away with a jaded eye regarding the whole concept of “Christian” and “family values.”

Fast forward to the present. Despite what they say, the Republican party certainly does not have a monopoly on Christianity, nor do they have a monopoly on hypocrisy. But. In the past three years, the Republican party’s and evangelical Christians’ willingness to cling to the myth that a man who is a serial adulterer, who only cares about material wealth and his own fame, who insisted he has done nothing to ask God for forgiveness for — HE REJECTED THE CENTRAL PREMISE OF CHRISTIANITY ITSELF — is the most Christian President we have ever had has been flabbergasting even for this jaded agnostic. It has also confirmed the darkest thing I always suspected but didn’t want to believe out of some sort of unearned goodwill towards my fellow Americans: that the actual tenants of Christianity mean nothing to these so-called “believers,” that they only wrap themselves in this particular cloak because it affords them power.

And so, to see Mitt Romney choose to do the right thing for this country rather than the right thing to do for his party, to see him choose to do something that in the short term will cause him and his family nothing but angina when this administration unleashes all of their horrors against them, to see him choose to do something knowing that in the end it would only be a symbolic gesture, all because he felt a duty to do so as a man of faith and as an obligation to his God … it left me with a number of emotions. I was impressed; I felt like I failed to give him enough credit in the past; I was angry that things have become so terrible in this country that I was awed by someone actually doing the right thing; and it left me even more sickened and disappointed in his Republican colleagues who failed to muster similar courage, even while publicly admitting that what this President did was wrong. I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with the likes of Susan Collins and Mark Rubio, but Romney’s act of faith brought this non-believer there.

Stephen Colbert, who is a Catholic who does try to practice what his faith teaches, was also profoundly moved by Romney’s vote and speech. Without mentioning his own faith, Colbert expresses his thanks to Romney from a believer’s perspective in an eloquent two minutes. It’s worth your time:

Meanwhile, President Two Corinthians was at the annual prayer breakfast this morning, mocking Romney and Pelosi for their faith and vowing vengeance upon his enemies. Greatest Christian President of All Time.

In the middle of the whole State of the Union, Senate Impeachment trial mess yesterday, I managed to forget one of the more ridiculous moments following Nancy Pelosi’s fairly mild act of dissent, Mike Pompeo’s completely idiotic tweet in response:

Does … does he think this is a diss? That comparing Nancy Pelosi to the moral center and most intelligent character on The Simpsons is an insult? And did he know what this screenshot is depicting? That in this moment, Lisa Simpson is tearing up an essay she had written about America’s greatness after she witnessed her congressman taking a bribe, selling out America? DOES HE REALLY WANT TO MAKE THIS COMPARISON?

Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, was not amused:

In other TV NEws

Gayle King is PISSED at CBS. Apparently, she had a wide-ranging interview with WNBA legend Lisa Leslie, and in the interview, she asked Leslie about Kobe Bryant and his legacy, specifically the rape allegations against him. CBS posted that part of the interview without any other context and people were SO MAD at Gayle King. King went to Twitter to defend herself and drag CBS: “So for the network to take the most salacious part, when taken out of context, and put it up online for people who didn’t see the whole interview, is very upsetting to me, and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with them. And we will — there will be a very intense discussion about that.”

Every episode of Lost will be available to stream for free on IMDb TV on May 1, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the finale. Also soon to be available, Ally McBeal, and Malcolm in the Middle.

Better Call Saul will return on February 23. Here’s a refresher on what happened last season. (Also, you should be able to stream season five on Netflix beginning on Sunday.)

John Walsh is still out there, catching bad guys.

Here is a deep dive into Apple TV+’s strategy — if there is one — if you are at all interested.

WAIT, WHITE GUYS ARE THE HEADS OF MOST STUDIOS? WHAT? WHY HAVE I NEVER BEEN INFORMED OF THIS?

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R.I.P.

Kirk Douglas, Legendary actor

Jane Milmore, Emmy-nominated writer and showrunner

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