FOURTH REICH BLUES: Maybe I’ve gotten spoiled. But if I’m going to get swacked by some right-wing stooge for the oil industry I’ve never met, I expect a little thought and originality. Say what you want about Joe Armendariz, area spear carrier for Santa Barbara’s plundering petro plutocrats, but the guy drips with sarcasm and style.
Always ornate, belligerent, and deliciously condescending, Armendariz puts serious work into his craft. But when Ric Grenell, mercenary mouthpiece for the GOP and born-again Donald Trump wannabe, lobbed an email hate bomb my way, it was disappointingly generic. It was as if Grenell — perhaps best known for omitting the letter “k” from his first name — had visited Kirkland and went on a bulk buying spree for stale rhetoric. First, he denounced my reporting on oil as “incredibly biased.” Then he proclaimed, “In case you haven’t noticed, the tide is sweeping across the country as the public rejects biased reporting.” He signed off with a strategically faux friendly “Have a good day,” right after accusing me of “journalistic malpractice.”
The man allegedly enjoys rock star status as talking-head opinionator on Fox News. Until this weekend, he’d been on Trump’s short list for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (The nod ultimately went to South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, famous for packing that unexpected extra “k” into her first name.) For about 13 seconds in 2012, Grenell — openly gay and a strong supporter of gay marriage — was appointed presidential campaign spokesperson for Mormon Mitt Romney, decidedly not a supporter of gay marriage. Bowing to pressure from the party’s anti-gay bigot brigade, Romney put a muzzle on Grenell almost immediately, and Grenell resigned before uttering a single syllable. An impressive résumé. Couldn’t he muster something better than “journalistic malpractice”? That’s just dead skin. He’d have done better with “fish wrap” and “parakeet cage lining,” the moldy, old chestnuts favored by cranks and crackpots everywhere.