“Just Because You’re A...”

     No known force has had as much influence on human affairs as religion. Moreover, no imaginable force could compete with it. After all, if you sincerely believe that the Supreme Authority of Existence has commanded that you do this and not do that, and will sentence you to an eternity of unspeakable torment should you disobey, you’ll toe the line.

     Ideologies that posture as above question – we might call them secular faiths – have similar effects on their allegiants, though they’re not quite as compelling and certainly aren’t inescapable. A secular faith is discernible by its resistance to evidence and reasoning that contradict its tenets. Eric Hoffer would say that it attempts to impose a “fact-proof screen” upon the believer. Some such faiths are rampant among us today, Marxism of all varieties (including “progressivism”) being the foremost examples.

     Note that a secular faith is inherently hostile to other kinds of faith. Such opposition is natural between two belief systems, each of which proclaims itself to be the ultimate authority. You’ll occasionally find a Marxist who gives lip service to some religious creed, but when the religion contradicts the dictates of his Marxism, the latter will win the day.

     Ironically, the Marxist is prone to dismiss the contentions of the non-Marxist with a kind of ad hominem: “You just say that because you’re a Christian / conservative / libertarian / [insert your own competing creed here].” It’s a bemusing sort of thrust. Isn’t the Marxist open to the same accusation? At any rate, it constitutes evidence that there’s no point in continuing the conversation.

     I’ve faced that thrust on several occasions. It can be massively irritating. A provocation to behavior that would be considered “untoward.” I haven’t always exhibited restraint at such times. My admiration for one who can maintain his composure in such circumstances is unbounded.

     Which brings me to the actual subject of today’s tirade: the highly impressive new White House press secretary, Miss Kayleigh McEnany.

---

     McEnany has rocked the White House press corps onto its back foot. She seems always to be prepared for anything and everything. She delivers ripostes to their “gotcha” sallies that leave them reeling, embarrassed, and angry. In this she displays a degree of political and public-relations acumen that few of her predecessors could claim. Robert A. Heinlein’s prescription to answer a hostile question with a sharper and even more hostile question is obviously a conscious part of her approach.

     The gentlemen of the press deem this as an affront to journalistic prerogatives. They get to ask the leading, embarrassing, tendentious questions; the press secretary is supposed to stand there and “take it.” Were there any credibility to their pretense of non-partisan “objectivity,” they might have a case. However, in such circumstances, counterpunching such as McEnany has practiced would be absent from the scene. Honest, courteous journalists do not operate as the White House press corps has done.

     So of course the Left’s pet commentators, and the NeverTrumpers allied with them de facto, would like to see McEnany boiled in oil. They share the belief that it’s the press corps’ prerogative to ask the hostile questions and the press secretary’s job to “take it;” it was embedded in their psyches long ago. This video provides a recent sample of typical NeverTrumper reactions.

     President Trump has chosen well...which has his opponents in the media riled to the max. The “She’s doing it because she’s a fanatic Trump loyalist” thrusts at McEnany are already accumulating. They allow no possibility that she sincerely believes in her presidential employer’s policies, positions, and administration and is determined to defend them to the best of her ability. No, it must be because of her competing faith – and that, in the sadly degenerated Jonah Goldberg’s opinion, renders her “grotesque.”

     Judging by her performance to date, I predict that McEnany will have a long tenure – as long as she wants to be there – as President Trump’s front-line representative to the press. She’s shown more resilience in the position than Sean Spicer or Sarah Sanders, both of whom I liked but neither of whom possessed McEnany’s impenetrability by the press’s barbs. Indeed, McEnany seems to be enjoying herself. That would be appropriate. A truly gifted duelist enjoys displaying his strokes. He glories in the cut and thrust between him and his adversary. A press secretary who can face down an overtly hostile press corps as McEnany has done should take pleasure in her performance.

     As for the carpers in the Punditocracy, appalled that a presidential press secretary should display serious cojones, their gasps and exclamations of disapproval say more about their own insufficiencies than they do about the articulate, well prepared, impeccably poised, and (by the way) quite beautiful Miss Kayleigh McEnany. Though I do wish she’d lose the false eyelashes; they don’t go with the rest of her look.