If you pay attention to the news (and I hope for my sake that you do and for your sake that you don’t), you know that it was a…er, pugilistic week on Capitol Hill. “Pugilistic” being the word I would use in a news story. In laywoman’s terms, it was a steaming shitshow of chest-beating all-caps pissiness.
Anyway, I keep you all apprised of all things masculinity politics, so…whether you want it or not (you do), here is your rundown.
An outline:
Senate (Near-)Smackdown 2023
What happened
At a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin challenged Teamsters President Sean O’Brien (who was there testifying) to a fight.
To be clear, this wasn’t just Mullin poking a hornet’s nest; O’Brien was totally rarin’ to go.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tried valiantly to get everyone to knock it off.
If you want to watch the video, and I’m not saying you do, here it is:
Oh, but there’s backstory.
See, Mullin, you might have noticed in that video, starts off by reading a thing.
That thing is a June tweet from O’Brien that instructs Mullin to “Quit the tough guy act,” insults his height, and concludes, “Anyplace, Anytime cowboy.”
(Unrelatedly, “Anyplace, Anytime cowboy” is the full text of a fan letter I wrote to Channing Tatum in my late 20s, but I digress.)
Here is a screenshot of O’Brien’s offending tweet, because it comes with a relevant photo.
[heavy sigh]
Further relevant details
CNN’s Dana Bash later asked Mullin what was going through his head: “The first thing I thought of when I stood up, I thought: I’m going to break my hand on this guy’s face. I’m going to take my wedding ring off.”
Whoa whoa whoa hold on I’m now learning Sen. Mullin was an MMA fighter?
Which also gave USA Today the opportunity to write the following golden bit of minorly passive-aggressive “just sayin’, these are facts” reporting.
Mullin’s Senate biography says he had an undefeated 5-0 record in the eight-sided MMA ring and is a member of the Oklahoma Wresting Hall of Fame. MMA sites Tapology and Sherdog each list him with a 3-0 record in matches in 2006 and 2007. The reasons for the discrepancy weren’t immediately clear.
Elbow-shove-tight-hallway-boogaloo
What happened
(My esteemed NPR colleague Claudia Grisales appears to be the only reporter who witnessed this whole thing, which is pretty cool, and she is a legend anyway but this cements it.)
Substack doesn’t let us embed tweets, so I’ll paraphrase from Claudia’s excellent thread:
Claudia is standing there interviewing Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, when Kevin McCarthy walks by and appears to shove or in some other way push Burchett towards Claudia.
Burchett yells at McCarthy, then runs after him.
The following conversation ensues:
TB: "Hey Kevin, why'd you walk behind me and elbow me in the back?"
KM: "I didn't elbow you in the back."
TB: "You got no guts, you did so, ...the reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that..."In response, McCarthy says, “anyplace, anytime, cowboy,” and then he and Burchett sit down to write thirsty fan mail to Channing Tatum ok ok just kidding moving on.
No but seriously. McCarthy later denied having done anything wrong, blaming a “tight hallway.”
“You look like a smurf”
…is a thing that Rep. James Comer said to Rep. Jared Moskowitz this week.
Then they yelled at each other a lot.
I got too tired to figure out what exactly this hearing was about in the first place.
…except I’m 99.9 percent sure the “smurf” line references a pretty epic jacket that Moskowitz is wearing.
Hotchie motchie.
Are the men ok?
Housekeeping!
This week’s newsletter had initially been a sort of creative writing artsy ooh la la thing I wrote, but we can save the touchy-feely output for later because testosterone is kind of my brand now, judging from the number of people Xweeting/Blue-Skying/Threading the above incidents to me. (To be clear, I appreciate the hell out of this.)
Anyway.
I’m trying a new feature for paid subscribers: Ask A Journalist! In the comments, paid people should please drop any questions about how reporting works. ONLY paid subscribers will be allowed to ask questions.
Please note: my answers will be purely personal, meaning I will not answer any obnoxious questions about my current or past employers.
(Examples of acceptable questions: “How do you decide what to report on?” “Is j-school a good idea?” “What’s the hardest kind of story to do?” “How did you get so charismatic and beautiful, and while you’re at it, how do you maintain your incredible deltoids?”)
(Examples of obnoxious questions: “Why does NPR cover X this way?” “Why is [X story] from Vox so awful?”)
Who/what determines what’s “obnoxious”? Me me me me me. Me. ME.
Links
MY STUFF:
You want a rundown of the GOP primary candidates’ abortion views? Boom. You got it.
I covered Trump’s “vermin” comments and talked about the connection to authoritarianism, which is a huge part of his appeal to voters.
I went on Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk The Killer. I love David Fincher and I loved this movie — I can’t stop thinking about it. This didn’t make it into the episode, but I saw The Killer as a profound meditation on work — why do you do what you do? If it brings you no pleasure, is it time to change? (Once again, Blank Check dudes, I am HERE and GOOD AT TALKING ABOUT MOVIES just drop me a line.)
OTHER STUFF:
The best damn take on WHY AREN’T PEOPLE GETTING MARRIED ever. I wanted to cheer and punch the air as I read this.
Excellent reporting on Mike Johnson’s ties to the Christian Right from my excellent colleague Susan Davis.
YOUR WEEKLY JOYFUL INTERNET THING YOU HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT: The 1987 Crystal Light Aerobics Championship opening. (At some point this existed set to a Jay-Z remix and it was WONDERFUL, and I will be forever angry at (presumably) Mr. Z for removing it.)
(I know that Jay-Z’s surname is not Z.)
YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL RECOMMENDATION: Khatia Buniatishvili playing Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto. Yes, Rach 3 got all the glory when we all saw Shine but Rach 2 is incredible.
WAIT HAVE I RECOMMENDED THAT BEFORE? If so: Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In the Light of Air. Ethereal but also earthy, if that makes sense. Atmospheric and odd and wonderful.
Please drop Ask A Journalist questions in the comments! Okay!
How do you move past the personal nature of so many of the comments you get (via Twitter/X, email, or other methods)? It seems like it'd be difficult not to let it get to you at times, but so many journalists, iincluding yourself (at least to an outsider who really knows nothing about you), seem to be able to set that stuff aside when writing a new piece.
So you just chalk it up to "well I know what some folks are gonna say about this already?" and try to ignore that population? Do you feel any motivation to try and get through to those kinds of people despite their bad faith communications?