Graham Platner’s Campaign Ends Just as ‘Hamlet’ Does
Shakespeare inevitably ends with either a group marriage or a group murder. I find happiness in the unhappy ending, which is why I found the Graham Platner campaign wildly entertaining. Its final act recalled the final act of the Bard’s most famous play. Read my column @ The American Spectator on how Maine’s ne’er-do-wells all ended up like Claudius and Laertes but we still await Susan Collins, a seldom-heard player throughout this tragedy, to enter in the manner of Fortinbras.
Maybe Not Shakespearean Tragedy but Stephen King Horror Movie?
Given the horror movie that the Maine Democratic Party has become, why do they not just nominate their most famous master-of-the-macabre booster? Stephen King, the same age (78) as Governor Janet Mills, surely enjoys better name recognition than any other Maine Democrat. And he supported Platner up until the ghoulish end, which makes him acceptable to the party’s activist wing. Beyond this, the man strikes as a first-class weirdo, which puts him at the very center of the Democratic Party in any state in the northeast. The current aspirants discussed resemble Pennywise, Annie Wilkes, and Jack Torrance after he behaved so cruelly toward Scatman Crothers.
Somebody Call a Wambulence
Jasmine Crockett, bitter over the state legislature redistricting her out of her House seat and her loss to James Talarico in the Texas U.S. Senate Democratic primary, defends her choice to not campaign for her former foe. “It was racist,” she said in her performative accent of Low-T Talarico’s victory over her. “It was a racist race. It is what it is, right? But we live in America as y’all are celebrating 250, okay? We know what this country is.”
In Sickness and in Wealth
Does it damage Rep. Ilhan Omar more that one husband somehow abracadabra’d millions away or that another husband allegedly entered the world through the same birth canal as she did? In 2026, I am not sure.
They Fall for It Like Charlie Brown
CNN fell for a Captain Jenks-like Twitter account that purported to come from a GOP lawmaker who claimed he engaged in a staring contest with an ill Senator Mitch McConnell. “I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky,” the parody post taken seriously by CNN claimed. “He’s so sharp. Just like always he let me do all of the talking. He’s a great listener. After that we prayed silently for awhile and had a staring contest. Just like always, he beat me.”
You and Forever (Give or Take an Eternity or Two)
Margaret Qually looked perfectly happy dancing around in her underwear in husband Jack Antonoff’s “You and Forever” video a few months back. But Antonoff, who co-produced half of Taylor Swift’s albums and co-wrote dozens of her songs, attended the pop star’s wedding with his sister. And Qualley, Andie McDowell’s daughter who put on a terrific performance as a Manson Girl in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, removed photos of her and Antonoff on her social media. Peter Wolf and Faye Dunaway? Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli? Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson? The unions between rock stars and actresses never seem to last as long as their fans root for them to.
Daniel J. Flynn
Daniel J. Flynn, a senior editor of The American Spectator, serves as a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution for the 2024-2025 academic year. His books include Cult City: Harvey Milk, Jim Jones, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco, Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America, A Conservative History of the American Left, and Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas. In 2025, he releases his magnum opus, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer.