What were Republicans thinking? A former cheerleader, over-acting from her sparkling unnaturally clean kitchen is going to win over the women?
KATIE BRITT.
Excuse me, make that Senator Katie Britt, (R) Alabama.
Before President Biden’s State of the Union address, I can truthfully claim I had never heard of her. Now? I can honestly say “I wish I had never heard of her”.
It is a sucker bet the GOP selected the Alabama junior senator to give the rebuttal to President Biden’s speech hoping she would appeal to women and younger voters.
Now, I’m wondering if a CAT scan would scrub her image and words from my brain pan.
Less than a minute into her speech, this thought popped up… “Cheerleader, definitely a former cheerleader”.
You know the type: malignantly perky, smiles with her entire face, emphasizes important phrases with definitive hand gestures and subtle body movements.
Cheerleader. Definitely.(Yes, I googled it!) Britt was twice named as Cheerleader of the Year in the national high school championships. She was a beauty pageant winner as she was crowned Alabama’s Junior Miss in 2000. Oh, she was also a professional cheerleader, being on the NFL’s Tennessee Titan cheerleading squad. “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar! All for Republicans, stand up and holler!”
She didn’t just give talking points about Biden’s speech: She emoted like she was the lead in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” And, she did it not from a studio setting with American flags as a backdrop, but from a place many rightwing conservative extremists believe is a woman’s “happy place”– a kitchen.
(Note: It was not a typical kitchen; it was a cleany-clean kitchen that looked as sterile as a hospital operating room; no counter-clutter, dirty dishes, not even a stray arrangement of down-home cookbooks. From the “Republicans love everybody” theme of Britt’s speech, one could have expected cookbooks with titles like “Easy Soul Food Recipes”, “Quick Meals for Teenagers”, and “Trump Family Recipes” to be prominently displayed.)
WHAT’S WRONG WITH this picture: A young, first-term Republican senator, a woman, giving an important speech concerning the future of her political party in a kitchen?
Before her pitiful attempt at “speechifying”, the freshman senator was considered a rising star in the party. But her words, phrasing, and delivery — with an over-the-top dramatic, fundamentalist preacher cadence – accompanied by a calculated dollop of simpering, left folks on both sides of the partisan aisle with expressions that spoke volumes: “WUT”?
When it comes to a State of the Union rebuttal speaker, viewers have been trained to look for fireworks; veteran political drama-watchers were expecting the toxic craziness of a Jim Jordan, or a Cruella Deville impersonation by Marjorie Taylor Greene, or a speech about family values by an hand’s-on expert like Lauren Boebert.
What a majority of viewers didn’t expect was a simpering drama queen who easily switched from tinged anger to almost-but-not-quite drawing out fictitious tears in order to get folks to take the current GOP seriously.
Her message came across as, “Look at me! I am a first-term Trumpupppet, I am also a gorgeous, well-put-together former beauty queen and accomplished cheerleader. Vote Republican!”
The only notable “positive” to come out of “Kitchen Barbie on
Steroids” was seeing Scarlett Johansson crucifying Britt in a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
To her credit, Britt went on a talk show and tried to do damage control. To her ever-lasting chagrin and embarrassment, she did not fall on her sword to save the party (which was certainly warranted) but tried to explain away the weirdness of the entire clown-car rigmarole.
All she did was hand Team Biden more salient talking points.
Sad, so very sad.
George Smith views the world from the back porch Bedspring Ridge, a dogtrot house he built in Sutton, Arkansas on old family land on a spot where his great-grandfather’s house once stood. There he lives and opines with his wife BobbieJean and a rescue dog, “Li’l Dawg.” A former newspaper reporter, editor and publisher, he has a master’s degree in business, is a retired director for a global technology company, has been a business owner, student of government and the behavior of politicians. He has been a college instructor, national motivational speaker, community development and festival development consultant and is a published author.