{"id":32664,"date":"2021-04-15T14:37:29","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T19:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=32664"},"modified":"2021-04-15T14:37:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T19:37:29","slug":"let-the-floundering-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/04\/15\/let-the-floundering-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Let The Floundering Begin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I see Matt Gaetz has chosen a traditional focus for his defensive maneuvers when it comes to recent revelations concerning Justice Department criminal investigation of his activities:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday announced a six-figure ad buy for a spot that targets CNN, as he fights to save his political career amid sexual trafficking allegations.<\/p>\n<p>The new 30-second ad will be featured in the Florida Republican\u2019s congressional district and nationally on select cable networks, according to a statement from Gaetz\u2019s congressional campaign. The ad marks the beginning of Gaetz\u2019s counteroffensive, as he \u201cfight[s] back against a multiweek fake news cycle against him,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we see what\u2019s really behind all of this: Democratic Party and media-driven smears aimed at taking out a Congressman of the United States,\u201d a spokesperson for the Friends of Matt Gaetz said in the statement.<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2021\/04\/14\/matt-gaetz-ad-buy-481588\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Politico<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sadly for him, neither <em><strong>CNN<\/strong><\/em> nor the Biden Administration started this investigation; <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/03\/31\/theres-another-possibility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it&#8217;s the product of the Trump Administration.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Which is not to say Trump is rewarding Gaetz&#8217;s loyalty with a spike up the backside. Perhaps former AG Barr didn&#8217;t much care for him. Perhaps a lower level official carried out a political hit on Gaetz.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Gaetz is even guilty.<\/p>\n<p>But Gaetz is faced with a conundrum here. If he goes after the real source of his investigation, he may find himself attacking influential figures in the conservative movement, and as a <em>firebrand conservative<\/em> himself, he knows the movement is fragile at the moment. The January 6th insurrection did not play well outside of the Republican Party, and even within the party it&#8217;s only acceptable due to self-deception. This has lessened support for the Republican Party, and while it&#8217;s not yet in danger of sinking into the self-made swamp of mass irrelevance, it&#8217;s been moving that way since the term of Gingrich as Speaker of the House.<\/p>\n<p>Gaetz needs to survive without knocking over any Republican kingpins.<\/p>\n<p>So he&#8217;ll go after traditional targets and hope that he can make it stick. Will he? I doubt it. If he is put on trial, I think he&#8217;ll be done. But until then, he&#8217;ll scrabble around and look worse and worse.<\/p>\n<p>Or he&#8217;ll be vindicated. That is looking less and less likely, but it&#8217;s not impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I see Matt Gaetz has chosen a traditional focus for his defensive maneuvers when it comes to recent revelations concerning Justice Department criminal investigation of his activities: Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday announced a six-figure ad buy for a spot that targets CNN, as he fights to save his political \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/04\/15\/let-the-floundering-begin\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32665,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32664\/revisions\/32665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}