Of big and loony lies
Walk with me for a few paragraphs.
I promise you I won鈥檛 bite.
The Big Lie lives.
There are Americans who still swear Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in a landslide. And that Biden鈥檚 7,052,770 lead in the popular vote, had been the handiwork of demonic vote-counters, and rigged voting machines.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is among those Americans.
She鈥檚 probably the loudest practitioner of 鈥淭he Big Lie.鈥�
I am loath to inject vernacular into these scribblings.
But I must.
I fear Rep. Greene is just a little 鈥渃ray cray鈥�.
She was Georgia鈥檚 dirty little secret when she won her congressional seat last November.
The folks in her congressional district knew she had been inclined to voice her support for wild conspiracies. They still gave her a rousing, 50-point victory over her hapless Democratic opponent.
Her future constituents knew she had claimed the mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida were faked.
And that she鈥檇 implied that Hillary Clinton had engaged in some form of pedophilia involving human sacrifice.
They didn鈥檛 care.
Marjorie Taylor Greene was their kind of candidate.
Admittedly, I haven鈥檛 spoken to any of those voters to ascertain their feelings about Rep. Greene.
I can鈥檛.
I tend to speak in complete sentences.
On Insurrection Day, when many congressmen and congresswomen went in hiding from the American terrorists who鈥檇 seized the Capitol building, Marjorie Taylor Greene gained her first national recognition.
She was shown openly ignoring a request to wear a mask among the people in the overcrowded room.
That was on Jan. 6. She鈥檇 only been sworn in on Jan. 3.
She鈥檇 gained negative national attention about as fast as any newly elected public servant in history, I suppose.
It wasn鈥檛 like she didn鈥檛 enjoy that particular form of traitorous behavior going on around her.
In a newly discovered video she recorded two years ago she talks about taking over government buildings.
鈥淲e have a sea of people. If we shut down the streets. If we shut down everything. If we flood the Capitol Building. Flood all of the government buildings. Go inside. We own them. We own these buildings,鈥� she decreed.
She became an overnight political curiosity, with a boatload of Facebook and Twitter posts, and videos of her snarling the latest QAnon conspiracies that were rapidly being discovered.
There was her lengthy and bizarre Facebook post, in which she claimed that the 2018 California wildfires were caused by Jewish laser beams.
I鈥檓 sorry.
Did I just write that?
It seems fitting, then, that somebody who conjures up those kinds of outrageous statements would be a prime candidate to repeatedly tell 鈥淭he Big Lie.鈥�
While most of her Republican colleagues have avoided discussing Joe Biden鈥檚 ascendance to the presidency, Marjorie Taylor Greene has found new ways to try to force him out of it.
She鈥檚 filed articles of impeachment against him.
In case you hadn鈥檛 heard about that (and there鈥檚 no reason why you should), the day after Biden took the oath of office, Greene filed two articles of impeachment against him.
I can鈥檛, for the life of me, figure out what took her so long.
She鈥檚 slipping.
Since then, there鈥檚 been lots of pressure placed on her fellow Republicans to rein her in.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell even issued a terse assessment of Greene and her antics.
鈥淪omebody who鈥檚 suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.鈥檚 airplane is not living in reality,鈥� McConnell said, but without mentioning Greene by name.
He also diverted everybody away from The Big Lie, and in the direction of Greene鈥檚 supposed 鈥溾�楲oony Lies鈥� and conspiracy theories.鈥�
He claims they鈥檙e becoming a 鈥渃ancer for the Republican Party.鈥�
That doesn鈥檛 matter to the twice impeached, ex-president, who has expressed his support for Greene.
He鈥檚 all for somebody who lies as well as he does.
Especially since she is a devout member of the (fictional) Church of Trump.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV-news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.