The Progressive Playbook Needs Some New Material

And maybe a new name, since "progressive" seems awfully generous at this point.

Because I’m fairly ancient, I still have a fat stack of cookbooks in my cupboard, even though it would be far easier to sit at my desk and google “Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen Scallopine with Mushrooms and Marsala Wine” than to dust off the collection, dig out the proper volume and then pinpoint the recipe I’m looking for. (That dish is everything, by the way. 10/10 recommend.) But the thing is, sometimes I don’t know what I want to make, and other times, I know exactly what I want to make but I can’t recall the name of the thing I have in mind (in this case, I’d have sworn it was Marsala Chicken) or I just don’t feel like weeding through 3,492 different versions of Marsala Chicken—not to mention the novella that comes with every recipe on the internet anymore—to find the one I think sounds the tastiest.

This is where cookbooks are particularly useful. If I plop Lidia’s food bible on the counter and rest it on its spine, it will open to that precise recipe nearly every time—because that’s the one I make the most. (If that trick doesn’t work, a visual scan of the edges will reveal a page that’s crustier and more worn than all the others, so I can easily slide my finger inside and pop it open to the desired culinary guide—or at least, a likely crowd favorite.)

Books are handy that way.

The poor, tired Progressive Playbook must have a permanent crease in its spine when they set it down, because it invariably opens to the How to Discredit Terrifying Trump Picks [TTPs] chapter every single time. This week’s TTP is, of course, Dan Bongino, the newly christened Deputy Director of the FBI. Or as I like to call him, the other totally TTP’s right-hand man.

Although the painfully predictable and uninspired media insist on calling Bongino a “right-wing podcaster and MAGA warrior,” he happens to have an extensive background in law enforcement, having served as a former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent. One could argue that these positions have afforded him a deep understanding of security, intelligence gathering, crisis management, and criminal justice, not to mention firsthand knowledge of federal operations. In other words, in addition to possessing obvious podcasting chops (The Dan Bongino Show is currently ranked third in iHeartRadio’s top 100 podcasts), the man is a dedicated public servant who has proven to be committed to national security and thereby more than capable of fulfilling the responsibilities required by the FBI.

But let’s not diddle with piddling things like qualifications. Dan Bongino isn’t just MAGA (awful), he’s ultra-mega MAGA with a massive megaphone (the worst)!

Only the BBC isn’t headline-freaking out over Bongino’s appointment.

We know the play, guys, and frankly we’re bored to tears of it. According to people who pretend to cover newsworthy events and individuals, RFK, Jr., an environmental lawyer with decades of experience taking on corporate polluters and government corruption who has decided his career to protecting public health, is an “antivax conspiracy theorist with a brain worm.” Pete Hegseth, a U.S. Army officer, bestselling author, Princeton (undergrad) and Harvard (grad school) alum and the TTP for U.S. Secretary of Defense, is an otherwise unremarkable “weekend morning host.” Tulsi Gabbard, a combat veteran who served on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees and oversaw military intelligence and counterterrorism, is an “Islamophobic shapeshifter.” And Elon Musk? Please. He’s an autistic billionaire fascist that nobody even elected!!! (You mean like sticky fingered drag queen Sam Brinton, lipstick-stained trans-agenda-pusher Rachel Levine, and the woman-who-couldn’t-define-woman Ketanji Brown Jackson who nevertheless was confirmed to the Supreme Court? Just checking.)

My already crippling girl crush on Karoline Leavitt got kicked up another impossible notch this week when she responded to the brouhaha over Bongino:

“I think it’s quite despicable to see many networks in this room who have had chyrons on their television screens labeling Mr. Bongino as a far-right podcaster,” Leavitt scolded. “He is not. He is a former law enforcement agent. He is a former Secret Service agent who put his life on the line to protect this country. And that is why the President of the United States has entrusted him for this important role. He’s also an outsider to this Washington swamp, and we often see that when outsiders are appointed to such coveted positions, a lot of people in this city get very, very nervous. And they should be, because Dan Bongino and Kash Patel and Attorney General Bondi are focused on rooting out the corruption at these agencies and ending the weaponization of government once and for all.”

In news no self-styled “news” outlet would ever dare to cover, the new FBI—under Bongino and Patel—is now investigating how, a decade ago, the agency deployed two undercover “honeypot” agents to infiltrate Trump’s 2016 campaign. The operation, allegedly greenlit by then-Director James Comey, was so secretive that no official case file existed, which doesn’t sound sketchy at all. According to a whistleblower, the scheme unraveled when a newspaper got hold of a photo of one of the agents, prompting the FBI to claim it was an informant who’d be killed if exposed—except, oops, she turned out to be their own undercover employee. One honeypot fled to the CIA, the other got a promotion, and now Patel and Bongino are leading the charge to figure out how deep this rabbit hole goes.

(And you know it’s basically bottomless when the best Google can cough up is that pandemic favorite, “It looks like the results below are changing quickly.”)

I guess “all the news that’s fit to print” is quite subjective.

Outlets like The Wall Street Journal are scrambling for the smelling salts over the fact that Bongino—gasp!—once called the FBI ‘irredeemably corrupt’ and now he’s going to be helping to run it! What if… and I mean seriously, what if… the guy gets in there and then just starts prosecuting his political enemies?

NBC, equally verklempt about having a right-wing podcaster in such a powerful bureau position, rounded up a posse of pissed off FBI insiders to explain to us dunces just how awful this appointment is going to be for them us.

“This is beyond problematic,” NBC quoted Christopher O’Leary, a retired senior FBI official. “Any hope that Kash could be steered [emphasis mine] by having experienced leaders around him is out the window. We now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers [also emphasis mine] running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.”

Forbes, almost accidentally, said the quiet part out loud:

“Bongino’s selection as the FBI’s deputy director appears unusual compared to previous nominations to the post, which has often been held by a career FBI employee: The last three deputy directors—Paul Abbate, David Bowdich and Andrew McCabe—previously worked for the agency and served in management positions.”

As my girl Karoline keenly pointed out, Bongino—like most TTPs—is an outsider. Despite his background, he’s not part of the swamp. He’s outspoken about rooting out the intelligence community’s patent corruption. He’s a passionate defender of the constitution, a vocal critic of federal abuse of power, and a diehard Trump loyalist (that burns their chaps the most, I suspect). He’s also whip-smart, articulate, unapologetic, and fearless. In other words, he’s the deep state’s third-worst nightmare.

And you’d better believe he’s got his work cut out for him. The very-latest intelligence scandal involves whistleblower claims that FBI insiders have been working around the clock to destroy the evidence they promised us related to the Epstein list and JFK assassination. (In other shocking news, sugar is sweet and CNN is outraged about something.)

I get that expecting two people to fix our intelligence agencies in four—or even forty—years is like trying to untangle a bowl of spaghetti with chopsticks while wearing oven mitts. But if my money was on anyone, it would be Patel and Bongino.

Tell me what you think of DB and the Rest of the TTPs (great band name, BTW) in the comments. ;)

Do you need this book? Maybe. Will you love it? I’d bet on it.