Energy in the Executive

Steyn On-line ^ | October 5, 2020 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

From yours truly in The Spectator two decades ago - February 10th 2001:

I have been on a short vacation. Well, not that short as it turned out. Apparently, I was away so long I missed the entire duration of Jesse Jackson's withdrawal from public life. Citing his need to 'revive my spirit and reconnect with my family', the Reverend Jackson withdrew from public life on Thursday, 18 January. He returned to public life on Saturday, 20 January. I missed the whole thing. Two complete days without the Rev Jackson on TV! No fewer than forty-eight — count 'em! — hours without the Reverend standing in the street shouting lamebrain anti-Dubya jingles like 'Stay out the Bushes!'

On that latter point, the nation's spiritual leader had failed to heed his own exhortation and had fathered a love-child, as they say in Fleet Street, or, as the Rev Jesse preferred to refer to his unwanted visit from the stork, an "indiscretion". So for two days he "withdrew from public life" - by which he meant his non-stop 24/7 denunciation of Bush as an "illegitimate president". A day or two before the election, the Reverend had noted that the Republican had "stopped drinking at age 40. He drank longer than Dr King lived". After the news of his "indiscretion", Bush, as is characteristic of the GOP, called Jesse to offer his support and very decently forbore to mention that, with rumors of other hoarier "indiscretions" multiplying, it was now entirely possible that Rev Jackson screwed around longer than Bush drank.

I digress. My main point is His Holiness The Most Reverend Jesse's 48-hour withdrawal from public life. I haven't checked the clock, but twenty years later President Trump may just have pipped that record.