Originally published at: DeSantis becomes a deer in headlights when questioned about his leaked debate memo | Boing Boing
…
5 Likes
“I know from being in the military that when you’re over the target, you take flak.” Oh shut up, Ron, you were a JAG lawyer who authorized torturing prisoners at Gitmo.
49 Likes
The non-desantis debaters should all maintain desantis bingo cards making audible vocalizations anytime desantis blathers anything akin to:
- Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.
- State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times.
- Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response.
- Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.
hmm… might have to add some ‘anti-woke’ pudding finger extras as four doesn’t seem quite sufficient for a bingo card (what are they… 5x5?). And any coverage of this swine-fest ought to include a running trump suck-up/take-down total for each; awarding a suck-up award at the end (a trophy who’s details are too disgusting to imagine) (“Four points to Gryffi… er, Christie”)
9 Likes
That shadow over his left shoulder looked remarkably like ■■■■■.
2 Likes
Deer in the headlights? More like the moment he realized that fart was a shart.
8 Likes
Yeah, one of the first takes I saw from pundits after the leak is that DeSantis will (rightfully) be under a microscope now and can’t do or say anything even vaguely resembling this debate strategy without opening himself up to a ton of attacks from all sides. Of course, the alternative is to try and sell himself on his actaul policy positions, which obviously isn’t a winning strategy either. So it sure seems like this guy is done.
Then again there were points in 2016 where we thought the other guy was done, so who the heck knows.
7 Likes
Wow, he’s looking pretty gaunt in this clip. Is the pressure affecting his health, I wonder?
2 Likes
i think it’s funny that desantis has turned so orange. most of the fox news hosts shifted skin tones years ago, i don’t know when it happened with de santis - but he’s become remarkably oompa loompa
i think he’s probably incapable of showing emotion, so maybe leaking it was strategy… 
13 Likes
If you are trying to compete with Trump and are too cowardly to mention him in the list of people attacking you then you cannot beat him.
13 Likes
I read an interesting explanation of how this memo ended up on a publicly accessible website, and if true then it wasn’t exactly a “leak” as we usually understand it.
A Political Action Committee is allowed to avoid many fundraising rules that apply to a candidate’s political campaign, but one trade off is that they aren’t allowed to actually coordinate with the campaign itself (for example, by sitting down with the candidate to work out a debate strategy).
However there’s no rule against a PAC publicly sharing their thoughts on what a candidate should do. So if they share a memo on a publicly accessible website that just happens to be read by members of the DeSantis campaign then that’s still technically legal. The miscalculation here is that they didn’t post it in an obscure enough corner of the internet to ensure no one else would find it before the debate.
13 Likes
Do we really still think these people have any concern about legality?
9 Likes
I think there are a nonzero number of professional political consultants working on the DeSantis campaign who aren’t invested enough in his cause to risk heavy fines or jail time.
I mean, look at him. Is that the kind of guy any competent politico is going to fall on their sword for?
9 Likes
[Gestures wildly at Trump]
How many people have fallen on their sword for that guy?
How is that number any higher than zero?
I guess I just don’t buy that people are going to go to those sorts of lengths when just sending an email or Telegram/Signal/WhatsApp message would be so much quicker and safer.
Then again, that would be sensible and competent so maybe there’s something to the idea after all.
11 Likes
DeSantis’ campaign is a listing vessel.
17 Likes
Trump has a amassed a cult of true believers. DeSantis, not so much.
Even if some of the people working for DeSantis are all in for Puddingfingers, many of the others are just professional political strategists working a gig for a paycheck. It would not surprise me one bit that people in the latter category would rather exploit a legal loophole than risk going to jail for the guy.
ETA: Here’s one column explaining what the apparent strategy was here
ETA 2: I don’t know that I agree with the author of the article that it was “well intentioned” exactly, but “intended to keep my sorry ass out of jail” seems likely.
6 Likes
And here I was going to guess it was “they posted it publicly because DeSantis forgot his email password”.
6 Likes
“When you’re over the target, that’s when you’re talking flak. So when your plane is riddled with holes, streaming flames and oily black smoke, and plummeting from the sky because you lost a wing, how much more successful could you possibly be?”
10 Likes
“I’m the biggest threat”
To the country.
7 Likes
Also , flak over the target? Did he serve in WWII? That isn’t how air combat has worked for 70 years
8 Likes
