Jeff Lord

Life can only be understood backward. It must be lived forward.

Chapter I

The Lord, The Reich, and the Kingdom of Ends

Appearing on AC360 on January 12th 2017, unconscionable hack Jeffrey Lord and Professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, did cross swords over the question of PEOTUS Trump’s financial conflicts of interests and the potential for ethics violations if said PEOTUS did not, with great haste, get him to a blind trust. Exclaimed Robert, concerning what is normally done in the realm, “you’d think he’d go out of his way, given his enormous potential for conflicts…it shows distain for government and public trust!” Replied Lord, with a smirk, “the American people have already given the president elect their vote of confidence and don’t need any further explanations…this has been litigated…All these things were out there for the American public to see. They could have rejected Donald Trump. The did not. It’s over.” If ever a flabber appeared gasted, then surely it was reflected upon the countenance of Reich. This is a crazy set of arguments, he cried; Alas! “Trump is creating an ethically challenged administration! How can he say that the public doesn’t care? How does he know that?” In response to the publicly interested passion of the man of the realm, the Lord just laughed, and did reply: “Because he is the President-Elect of the United States, that’s how!” In great agitation, Reich did protest; “Just because you are the President-Elect, it doesn’t give you a license to undermine the integrity of government!” In reply, Lord did smirk anew: “This is just another liberal argument…but the American people made their decision. It’s over. Get on with it.” Whereas it used to be said, within the realm, that ‘ethics has no party’ we can thank the Lord for the stark new clarity; if a man be elected, who wears his contempt for democracy and the public interest on full display for all to see, then the election of said individual is a ratification of the very flouting. There will be no more discussion of ethics, since while the realm is now a kingdom, it is certainly no Kingdom of Ends.

Chapter II

Obama & Mao Zedong: The Great Leap Forward in Logic

“Comrades, you can’t make it up!” wrote the agitated Jeff Lord in the American Spectator on May 3rd 2012. Since ’Forward’ is the new Obama slogan, surely this can be borrowed from “none other than the late Communist leader Chairman Mao! Mao’s slogan? ‘The Great Leap Forward.’” Having clearly identified the source of the offending slogan, Lord himself leaps forward, logically at least, and proceeds to paint a picture of the Maoist adventure; “coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward” exclaimed Jeff Lord, and it “motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history. Estimates of the death toll range from 18 million to 45 million.” By Jupiter! He cried, let’s work our way through some of the thinking that was behind “The Great Leap Forward” and see if there are any similarities to the people who have now chosen “Forward” as their slogan! Putting aside the point that Mao’s program did have to do primarily with leaping from the agrarian state to the industrial and to proletarian revolution in a single leap, Jeff Lord finds Ariadne’s thread in the common project of total submission; where the Chinese communist party controlled all aspects of Chinese life, so too, with the Democrats; is not the dream of portable insurance, Lord asks, akin to the Marxist utopia of the classless society? How about TSA pat downs? Or the Chevy Volt? It would appear that something is classless here, and it isn’t society…

Chapter III

It’s Apparently No Sin to Kill a Mockingbird

On July 19, 2010, Shirley Sherrod, a lifelong advocate for African-American farmers, and Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the USDA, was forced to resign her position by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack after blogger Andrew Breitbart posted on his web site what did turn out to be a selectively-edited video of Sherrod’s address to an NAACP event. But lo! Upon further review, the government reversed its course, and Sherrod was again offered a position. In reaction to the misleadingly edited video mischief, unconscionable hack Jeff Lord did review the video, and decided to pile on the much-maligned Sherrod, who had, in the course of the video, told the story of her southern black family’s struggle for civil rights. Sherrod, explained unconscionable hack Jeff Lord, is a liar for saying that her relative Bobby Hall had been lynched, since there was no rope; Hall had been beaten to death with a blackjack by Sherriff Claude Screws and two other men while handcuffed, and this compounded the lie, since three people could hardly be called a mob. But by Jove! It turns out that the legal definition of a lynching is no way restricted to death by extra-judicial hanging, and a mob, is in fact, minimally a group of three assailants, as anyone who bothered to do their homework when seeking to add insult to injury in the most mean-spirited way imaginable. When Jeff Lord was taken to task by Reason.com editor Radley Balko, Lord did protest, and in the course of it, referred to Balko “Radley Boo Balko” making allusion to the shy and softhearted character Boo Radley from Harper Lee’s classic novel on southern lynching, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Apparently, while it might be a sin to kill a mockingbird, because all they do is sing, it is no sin to heap derision upon a mistreated heroine like Sherrod, a woman whose life has been a profile in courage.

Chapter IV

Franklin & Marshall College: Lux et Lex

Prior to embarking upon his career of scurrilous punditry, which appears to have been triggered at some point by an obsessive need to insist, at any opportunity, that pre-civil rights era southern Democrats were as racist as their GOP counterparts, Lord did work as an associate Political Director in the Reagan White House, and among other things staffed the SCOTUS nomination of Robert Bork. Lord actually began his career as staffer to various moderate Republicans, including Jack Kemp and John Heinz III. Lord received his education at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Franklin and Marshall was chartered as Franklin College in 1787, having received a bequest from none other than Benjamin Franklin. The college had as its goal “to preserve our present republican system of government.” It’s first trustees included five signers of the Declaration of Independence, two members of the Constitutional Convention, and seven officers of the Revolutionary War.

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by Tedd Siegel