Being a soldier is a tough responsibility, especially when you are fighting a war against dumb, and you think that you’re the second-smartest person in Alabama (behind John Archibald).
So go the life and times of Kyle Edward Whitmire, a self-proclaimed soldier in a war on dumb. And sometimes, fighting that dumb war can evoke awkward and emotional behavior — fitting of a hormonal adolescent whose mom just revoked his Fortnite privileges.
On Thursday, Whitmire lashed out in a column (that somehow snuck past his semi-adult editors at AL(dot)com) against Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In it, Whitmire took jabs at Sessions about his “Antebellum code” (LOL, his middle name is Beauregard… Get it?), hawkish stances on immigration and marijuana. Whitmire argued that no one from the inside of the system, referring to Sessions’ position as attorney general, can effect change on the status quo.
In reading it, one quickly bores of the Sessions aspect of Whitmire’s belles-lettres. Instead, readers are likely to leave with the distinct impression that Whitmire is slowly losing grasp of his sanity.
For those concerned about Whitmire, take solace in the fact that he cannot actually believe his own arguments. If the dumb war’s warrior were actually hoping for a solution to the dysfunction in Washington, he wouldn’t shill for Democratic candidates at AL(dot)com and on social media.
Or perhaps he believes only Democrats are capable of changing things from the inside. I mean, there is real evidence Sessions’ predecessors Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch remade the culture of the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama, which has a lot to do with why we are where we are now with the troubles Donald Trump is facing. Sessions may not be capable of that in Whitmire’s view.
Nonetheless, whatever the reason for his doubts, Whitmire is suffering from a bout of romanticism. Once upon a time, before the great consolidation of three of Alabama’s newspapers owned by the Newhouse media conglomerate, what the scribes put on the pages of The Birmingham News mattered. A petulant screed aimed at one of Alabama’s own politicians by a figure like Whitmire would have mattered and might have influenced people.
But not anymore. After undergoing a transformation from the state’s papers of record to a local (and bad) impression of BuzzFeed Politics, elected officials in Alabama no longer climb over each other to kiss local reporters’ rings. Nor do they sweat what those reporters’ opinion pages might say about them.
Whitmire’s essay is just a return to his Birmingham Weekly alternative newspaper roots, a passing fad that took a symbolic hit with the closure of New York City’s The Village Voice last week. It’s a safe space for him and not meant to be taken seriously – not that you would take it seriously, Attorney General Sessions.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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