By Bob Gaydos

Michael Cohen
… back in the fold

     Natalie Harp. Karoline Leavitt. Michael Cohen.

      Do you catch my drift?

      If you have only a cursory familiarity with current events, those names in the news the past few days will probably cause you to stop and pause to connect the dots. Yeah. You got it. Just one dot.

      Trump.

     Make it two: A total lack of self-respect. It’s absolutely necessary to get ahead in MAGA World. 

      Until Sunday, the hands-down winner of the yucky, smarmiest display of “Anything else I can do for you, boss”? was Harp. Nicknamed the human printer. The attractive, blonde “human printer” who is always at his side. The attractive, blonde human printer, who refused to submit to a security clearance, oversees all Trump’s social media posts and carries a really big bag full of something or other wherever she and Trump go. Yes, the attractive blonde who resembles his daughter, Ivanka. That one. The blonde who jumped into the trunk of his car when she was told there was no room in the motorcade for her.

      Harp had usurped the title from Leavitt, the attractive blonde White House press secretary who has never found a lie too outrageous or too absurd to repeat for Trump, no insult too nasty to hurl at the press. Leavitt is leaving her high profile job at the White House, which she had quickly resumed despite just having given birth to a baby girl. The 

announcement of her departure came after Trump decided to use her as one of the decoys in the two-plane farce in Turkey, but took Harp with him by his side in the catering cart for the presumably “safe” plane. Leavitt stays on this list because she didn’t dump Trump, she joined some super Pac, MAGA Inc., where she previously served as spokesperson. What’s more, while she wants to “spend more time with family,” she says she plans to serve as a close, outside adviser and to join Trump at the Republican convention next month. Which could mean Trump will have attractive blonde bookends, er aides, on either side of him as he rambles through his speech.

      Nonetheless, after last Sunday, neither attractive blonde etc. can lay claim to being the smarmiest of them all. That title once again goes to Michael Cohen, the fixer. Not female or blonde, but a lawyer willing to lie, cheat and steal for Trump, go to prison for him, write a book bad-mouthing him and, after eight years, turn around and invite his “boss” on to his radio show for a full-length interview in which they mend fences and Cohen signs off by singing “Reunited.” Yucky.

      This to me confirms that, while Trump clearly appreciates the presence of attractive blonde sycophants, nothing comes closer to his heart, especially when the future looks threatening, than a lawyer without an ounce of self-respect and a whole-hearted willingness to ignore the law. (Think Roy Cohn, Rudy Giuliani and our current attorney general.) Cohen, who served three years in Otisville Correctional Facility, just down the road from where I’m typing this (much of it in solitary confinement at Trump’s order), says he puckered up because he’s concerned for his family’s safety.

       Oh yeah, he also resubmitted his bid for a federal pardon and he might be trying to get his law license back. And he surely knows what’s in the Epstein files

     If you catch my drift. 

  By Bob Gaydos

   Rudy’s got Covid.

Rudy Giuliani has no use for masks. Rudy got Covid.

  “Hallelujah!” Scream millions on Facebook and Twitter. Also, “Karma;” “Serves him right;” “He probably spread it over half the country;” “Stupid spreader;” and, “I don’t wish anybody dead, but …”

      How far the mighty have fallen. How sad the daily sight of the onetime “America’s Mayor” making a fool of himself in court and anywhere he can arrange an audience in public in order to symbolically and delusionally prostrate himself at the feet of a man who doesn’t care about him and who will never pay his legal fees.

      And all without a mask. Everywhere. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, the White House. Rudy’s got it. Jenna Ellis, one of his equally delusional “co-counsels,” has it as well. Where’d they get it? Who knows? Who’d they give it to? No idea. No contact tracing as well as no social distancing.

      And no masks.

      What is it with Americans — especially a lot of Republicans — who won’t wear a mask? It’s the easiest and best way to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, along with proper social distancing. If everybody does it, fewer people get it, fewer people die, the sooner we can go back to work and we don’t have to wear masks. That’s not even new math. It’s just common sense and decency.

     We’re approaching 300,000 dead from Covid-19 in this country, a great many of those deaths the result of a total lack of planning and caring by the Trump administration. Criminal negligence writ large. Trump doesn’t care anymore. He’s focused on raising as much money as he can with his phony “the election was rigged” campaign. The one Rudy was in charge of until he got Covid. Inconvenient.

      Also embarrassing: The world found out about Rudy and Covid in a tweet from Trump. It’s a surprise the news didn’t get lost in that Twitter chaos.

      It’s hard to know what happened to Rudy. He took his 9/11 fame and prominence, conducted a half-hearted campaign for president a while back, then apparently decided to be a lackey and legal errand boy for Donald Trump, a job with great visibility and occasional perks, until you cross him. Spread the conspiracy theories. Make up new ones every day. Ukraine today, Philadelphia tomorrow.

       And whatever you do, don’t wear a mask. Not because there is no Covid. We know there’s a virus — Trump even got it — but because we can’t let all those people coming to our rallies know that it’s real. We can’t let them know that we ignored it and let tens of thousands of people die. We don’t wear masks whatever Fauci says. We were robbed! Help us fight it! Give us money! Don’t wear a mask! Only liberals, Democrats, socialists, communists and coastal elites wear masks! Real Americans don’t wear masks!

        Tell them, Rudy.

        So Rudy’s got Covid. I don’t wish him dead, but a little suffering might be good for him.

        Once upon a time I might’ve started this column by writing, “Rudolph Giuliani, lawyer for President Donald Trump, has contracted the COVID-19 virus. The former New York City mayor apparently was exposed to the virus in the midst of his last-minute campaign to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.”

          But I spent four decades writing for tabloid newspapers and when a once-prominent political figure makes a fool of himself on a daily basis, that boils down to, “Rudy got Covid.” In bold type. He’s got the notoriety, but no longer the respect. He didn’t wear a mask.

         Now, I am not a Covid guerilla. In fact, I have even been chastised for occasionally being a little too casual in my own mask-wearing and social distancing. But I am of an age and I don’t like being considered expendable to the rest of the herd. So I learned. I try always to wear my mask properly (over the nose) and insist on social distancing. I even wear gloves. Also, my hands have never been cleaner. I also take vitamin D supplements and have type O blood, both of which have been reported as good things to have to avoid Covid-19. But if I’ve got it without symptoms, I don’t want to pass it on to you and, in return, I don’t want you to pass it on to me. It’s pretty simple. Science and respect. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be like Rudy.

       Wear a mask.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com