It’s the middle of August, which means that, here in Tucson, it’s the sweaty armpit of the entire year’s calendar. I pretty much hate it. I once jokingly wrote that “August is the cruelest month” and all the guys with Master’s degrees in English who were working at Bentley’s sent me these really well-written hate letters. (Their syntax was like music.)

But really, Guys, you don’t think that I had to suffer through T.S. Eliot just like everybody else in high school?

I would rather suffer through two Junes, with 110-degree temperatures, than one August with 90 percent humidity. To be fair, the humidity does allow one to work up a serious sweat when working out. Unfortunately, it also has the same effect when you’re sitting on the couch or standing still or sleeping.

One of my biggest beefs with August is that the intermittent rain doesn’t allow me to hang my clothes out to dry. While we have a perfectly good dryer, I like to hang my clothes out on the line so that they’ll remain springtime fresh. I work out every day and putting those nasty T-shirts in the dryer only serves to bake in the Fat Man Funk.

Today is just a little bit past the middle of August. In the old days, I would have used next week’s column to look at the upcoming primary election here in Arizona. But my next column won’t be for a couple of weeks and the primary will be over. It will be interesting to see how many votes crackpot Kelli Ward got in her bid to unseat longtime Senator John “Donald Trump’s B-Word” McCain.

There really aren’t a whole lot of exciting races statewide. I want to see who emerges as the Republican candidate in Congressional District 1 (the District that snakes from Saddlebrook north of Tucson all the way up to the Utah state line). I had thought that White Mountain rancher Gary Kiehne would win that primary, but now he has the endorsement of House Speaker David Gowan, who dropped out of the race last week when he finally realized that Barack Obama had a better chance of winning that GOP primary. That stamp of approval could actually help self-promoter extraordinaire and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu come out on top.

The scariest one in that race is Wendy Rogers. She has a radio commercial that says something to the effect of “Some crazy guy uses a gun to shoot and kill people and all liberals can think about is how to make it harder for some crazy guy to get hold of a gun so he can go shoot and kill people.” Um, yeah.

There are a few other things that I have to get off my chest before the next column, because, by then, it will be September, which means football season. And during football season, everything is good. The heat and humidity that were so awful in August will, in September, mean that it’s still way early in the football season, so we have a long, glorious way to go. I feel obligated to say:

• A lot of people got mad at my last column, saying (among other things) that I’m obsessed with race. I sincerely wish that race were not a factor in American politics anymore. Then we could talk about substantive matters, like why does the Ducey Administration hate on Indians. Oh wait.

• I really don’t believe that all Southerners are racists. For one thing, there are a lot of black people in the South and I can’t imagine that they are all racist. In all seriousness, I don’t believe that all white Southerners are racist. Nor do I believe that all Trump supporters are racist. However, comedian Charlie Murphy (Eddie’s brother) summed it up perfectly when he said, “Not all Trump supporters are racists. But all racists are Trump supporters.”

• Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns must mean that there is something really nasty in there. Most people think that he either doesn’t pay taxes, he doesn’t give to charity, or (the big one) that he’s not nearly as rich as he says he is. I think that all media people—left and right—should start referring to Trump as “a millionaire (with an ‘m’) real-estate promoter.” He’d probably sue somebody for slander and then all that would have to come out in court.

• Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who held many positions in his life, including U.S. Senator from New York, once famously said, “You are entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

One of the saddest examples of this are the people who keep talking about Benghazi, even after nine different Congressional reports from seven different (Republican-controlled) Congressional committees failed to find anything that could be used to derail Hillary Clinton’s campaign (even after a top Republican congressman candidly and publicly stated that such was their goal.

First of all, it was a CIA operation and therefore not entirely (or at all) under the purview of the State Department. But I keep hearing (from people who really should know better) that “Hillary Clinton slept through the attack on Benghazi.” Folks, when the embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked, it was 3:40 in the afternoon in Washington, D.C. Maybe somebody her age could be found in line for the early-bird buffet at that time, but certainly not in bed for the night.

This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2016.

19 replies on “Danehy”

  3. Unbelievable! The pot calling the kettle black.

    Wrong, Again…always good for a laugh and an example of how not to be.

    Not good for ANYTHING ELSE though.

  5. Tom,
    Calling you ignorant would insult too many people. Wisdom is difficult and usually earned in time, but not knowing basic facts – and then giving opinions – could be called reckless arrogance.
    Benghazi has no Embassy, only an undefended Consulate. The US Libyan Embassy, with its Marine Detachment, is in Tripoli … about 400 miles away. The US Ambassador was sent to Benghazi for an indefinite time to consummate an arms deal with the Syrian Rebels through the Turkish Government. The Ambassador asked repeatedly for some very basic security measures over a period of weeks and was ignored or refused by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. According to discovered emails and a Daily Mail article, Hillary did not deign to answer her Ambassador’s pleas in person. Perhaps this could be called “not answering the phone” by her enemies, or by the widows and orphans.
    Remember, this massive dereliction of Clinton’s duty was during her boss’s reelection campaign where he bragged about his success in the newly placated Middle East.
    Look this stuff up, Tom; it’s called information. I know you are a Liberal, but this is embarrassing to all your barbarian friends.
    Bill

  6. Tom, all I have to say is: you need to wash your sweaty t-shirts before you put them in the dryer. I promise they won’t smell quite as bad. Oh, also? You are correct re Benghazi and I wish the people who have ignored the reports from the many Congressional committees regarding that terrible and sad event would just shut the hell up.

  7. Constant whining about Benghazi is not going to change the facts. Once again, Hillary the Liar is involved. Do you ever ask yourselves why everything she handles has the “appearance” of improprieties?

    Arguing that Trump is not trustworthy with national security is insane. You have a fraud, liar and an incompetent political hack that may win the presidency that doesn’t understand national security.

    Her voters will allow more harm to come to our country. And it’s citizens.

  9. You brought up race again. What a surprise. I watched those racist white southerners haul out their
    own boats and modified ATV’s and rescue thousands of their neighbors this week and surprise surprise, they were helping black people too. Meanwhile Barrack is golfing with Larry David I believe.
    Watched people in Milwaukee riot and yell ” beat down all the white people” ( even though CNN tried to edit it out) after a black cop shot an armed black criminal. Guess hate is present in all parts of the country, as is kindness. Maybe you should finally grow up and stop painting with such a broad brush.
    No that wouldn’t work, your “Democrat” party needs to keep fanning the flames and taking the minority vote for granted to maintain power. How long has your party been running most of the major cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis and on and on Tom? Has anything improved? Oh hell with it, let’s blame Bush.

  11. Everyone knows Tom leans left. So why do all the right wingers come out in force after every column? The right and left are very far apart in their perceptions of reality and neither are budging. I don’t see any point in trying to convince the other side of their folly. However, it is encouraging that many prominent right wing columnist like George Will and Jonah Goldberg see Trump as the trainwreck that he is.
    I don’t believe everyone who supports Trump is a racist, but I think Charlie Murphy is more right than wrong.

  12. And a jury of his peers found OJ Simpson innocent of the murder he committed. Did we suspend all laws? No. You have to fight the good fight. Just make sure you can find the truth. Facts speak for themselves

    Like this:

    http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/hacked-email-reveals-who-is-behind-al-gores-climate-change-agenda?utm_source=COTR&utm_medium=COTR&utm_campaign=COTR

    $30M from a communist for Gore to promote global warming? I guess science has lost credibility on this one too.

  13. Hey EE
    It might be because the daily fish wrap in this town is so pathetic with everyone singin from the same hymnal. All Fitz all the time is unbearable and I’m sure the hell not gonna pay for that rag.
    Don’t agree with Tom often but who else are we supposed to read in Grijalva Gulch?
    Isn’t nice to have some lively debate or do you really want all “likes” all the time.
    Not trying to convince the other side of anything, just a place to vent.

  14. Tucson voters need to know what Martha McSally actually stands for. Supporting Donald Trump and his radical views. has Martha ever told the voters how she had voted? NO. She voted to defund all Military bands and the choirs. Most American enjoy them. But McSally won and they will no longer be apart of the great American life. Martha ads talks about here family, her military life. Nothing is said what she truly stand for. OH yeah, more border protection. All the GOP stand for that. They have for decades. But its been all talk and not action from The GOP. Tucson, AZ and America needs a congress that stands for something. The past five years its been doing nothing under right wing conservatives. NOTHING for America.

  15. That is not true votesmary. They reduced a half billion dollar budget. They were playing for generals and served very few. It is an excellent cost saving matter that had Democratic support.

  16. I told myself that I would stay out of this, but I have to point out that it was Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” not Tom Hanks.

  17. I said I fell like Tom Hanks, because he was dropped and they hired Bill Murray to play the part of Phil Connors.

    There were 36 distinct days shown in the movie.

    Bill Murray mentioned he’d been “stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned,” though only electrocution was shown in the movie; adding the 6 other methods of death provides a minimum of 42 days.

    He mentions it takes about six months to become an expert at throwing cards, so add another 182 days (according to Google calculator that’s about how long 6 months is) to give us 224 days. He also obviously spent time learning the exact timing needed to rob the armored truck, but since he spent only 4-5 hours a day working on card throwing, it’s conceivable he could have overlap and do those both during the same days.-Ja Kitos Professional Zombie Hunter

    Should have listened to yourself.

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