The Senate V. Kennedy: Two Nights Only!

If you missed yesterday's political smackdown, I got you.

On this week’s rousing episode of WELL, HONESTLY, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?, a parade of sanctimonious, hypocritical, sometimes hysterical Senators [hi, not-so-gentlelady Warren!] took turns yesterday shelling misleading, loaded questions at hopeful HHS Secretary Bobby Kennedy during the first of his two Senate Confirmation Hearings.

Have you ever seen a wake of vultures* ripping apart a fresh heap of roadkill? Unfortunately, I have. It was uglier than that.

*Random aside: As a certified word-nerd, I am a little obsessed with animal venery. A murder of crows? A parliament of owls? A business of ferrets? A thunder of hippos? A wisdom of wombats? Who gets to pick these? In my next life, I definitely need to be on the collective noun naming committee.

I tuned into every gory minute of the hearings and I’ll spare you the play-by-play (but happily give it a name: pharmageddon); plenty of other substackers like Screaming into the Void and Bill Rice Jr., who broke down the numbers in an important and mind-numbing fashion, have done that adeptly already. Suffice to say if I never hear the phrases “lifesaving vaccines” or “anti-vax conspiracies” again in my life, I’ll be happier than a dog with two tails and his very own bottomless bucket of peanut butter.

In the least shocking twist since Ross and Rachel’s eleventh-hour reunion, the word measles was mentioned 25 times during the hearing, yet not once did a single Democratic senator mention the words obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. (Weird that none of the unspoken words has a vaccine associated with it, right?) For fun, I asked ChatGPT to put the importance of measles as a public health threat into the context of the others.

Watching these pharmaceutical beneficiaries—I mean, Senators—sling predictably pejorative insults at a man of obvious integrity and then take turns lecturing him on the perils of spreading dangerous misinformation (after praising Operation Warp Speed) and profiting from one’s government position (while being regulars on the pharma payroll) and waxing poetic about the unshakable integrity of our alphabet agencies (and then being exposed as a liar and a wife beater, whoops) was physically painful. I had to pause the live feed and walk away from my computer half a dozen times, not to down a tequila shot as much as I wanted to, but to preserve what little was left of my patience.

“I think he’ll get confirmed,” my not-Pollyanna husband said tonight on our OPGCR [*not an official millennial acronym but a term we made up for the Old Person Golf Cart Ride we take nightly; I know, we’re cute].

“Really? You do?” I pleaded, wanting him to be right but feeling my perpetually overflowing glass dip dangerously below the half-full mark.

I’m not gonna lie [NGL]: For a few grief-stricken minutes today, I felt as if everything was riding on this trainwreck of a hearing. I wanted to leap through my monitor and personally muzzle at least a dozen smug, dishonorable senators myself. I longed to beg the Chairman of the Finance Committee, the esteemed and articulate Mike Crapo, to let Bobby answer a single question before being interrupted again with a rude, “Yes or no, Mr. Kennedy? Do you regret spreading deadly conspiracy theories and causing the deaths of millions of innocent Americans? It’s a yes or no question.”

Certainly, much was riding on this trainwreck of a hearing. And Crapo, to his immense credit and despite his unfortunate name, did an admirable job acknowledging Kennedy's accessibility to members and staff from both parties and noting his unwavering commitment to the responsibilities of the role. He spun HHS’s many challenges into opportunities for bold, transformative solutions. He concluded by stating that Kennedy, if confirmed, would have the opportunity to resuscitate our ailing healthcare system and end the chronic disease epidemic that is crippling our country.

It was a solid start—until someone let the dogs out. Ron Wyden opened the show by basically calling Kennedy a murderer. Elizabeth Warren, who makes millions off pharma, demanded that Bobby promise to never again make money by suing pharma. Bernie Sanders wanted Bobby to admit that he is personally supportive of the anti-vaxxer baby bodysuits his former organization sells. (Could someone please make sure The Kiffness gets that clip? I can’t wait for his next chart-topping hit, They’re Coming for the Onesies.)

I was ready to wave a sad white flag—*sigh, we tried*—and call it a day.

But then out of nowhere, Pollyanna herself showed up.

“What if,” she whispered, “this was the plan all along?”

“Talk to me, Polly,” I cried, all ugly Selena-Gomez style. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we went into this hearing today knowing how corrupt most of these senators are,” she explained. “Surely Trump and Kennedy knew that, too.”

“So, he’s the sacrificial lamb?” I asked. “The throwaway appointment Trump tossed out just to appease the [massive] segment of his base who only voted for him because of MAHA, knowing full well Kennedy would never be confirmed?”

“Not exactly,” Polly laughed. “Look. Bobby and MAHA aren’t going away. This administration knows that. The corrupt senators who oppose him know that. If he somehow doesn’t get confirmed as Secretary of HHS—and I still think he has a shot, obviously—there will be another role for him. He *may* be the sacrificial lamb in that sense, but his message is reaching people. It’s galvanizing people. It’s resonating. And now—thanks to the beauty of free speech that we still enjoy in this county—the traitors who took an oath to represent their constituents and failed miserably in their duties are being exposed as the crooked, hypocritical pharma shills they are. It’s all good, girlfriend. I promise.”

You guys already know this about me, but I tend to believe what Pollyanna says. What do you think? And do you have the stomach for Round 2 today? (I’m not sure yet, TBH *oh who am I kidding you know I’ll be glued to that hellscape.) Share your observations, frustrations, and predictions in the comments. :)

*An unrelated bonus for my fellow word-nerds. If you haven’t seen the brilliant Nate Bargatze on SNL on the origins and evolution of the English language, please enjoy these two clips. If you’re like me and yesterday made you physically sick, laughter is the very best medicine.