#1,095: Don't You Love Farce?

POTUS With Foreign Ministers of Denmark and Greenland

Rumor has it that, just moments before America’s Fondling Father was set to sign a multifaceted treaty with Denmark and Greenland at the UN General Assembly, someone had the nutty notion of airing a version of Stephen Sondheim’s "Send in the Clowns" in order to humiliate POTUS. Despite both the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and United Nations officials stating they had no responsibility for (or involvement in) choosing the playlist for the venue, the airing of this particular song - which contains the lyric Don’t you love farce? - almost immediately went viral. It had done its trick; Felon47 was unquestionably mortified in the eyes of the international community.

Of course, our “beloved Pouter Pidgeon” (a nickname for Benito Mussolini) has been viewed as a boneheaded doofus by most international leaders ever since he first rode down that golden escalator on June 16, 2015. Speaking of boneheaded, his stated reasons for stealing Greenland from Denmark have long been as varied, convoluted, and vacuous as his stated objectives for "obliterating” Iran. What the USA got out of the trilateral agreement with Denmark and Greenland was an expansion of American military presence in the Arctic while explicitly reaffirming Danish sovereignty and Greenlandic self-determination. In other words, precious little save bragging rights.

Getting back to Sondheim’s masterpiece, Send in the Clowns is the best-known song in A Little Night Music. Inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, Sondheim (known simply in the theater world as “G-d”) created the music and lyrics for a celebrated musical comedy that won 6 Tony Awards in its initial run on Broadway in 1973. Stars in the original cast were Glynis Johns (Desirée Armfeldt), Len Cariou (Frederik Egerman), Hermione Gingold (Madame Armfeldt), and Patricia Elliott (Countess Charlotte Malcolm). Its plot is simple: a web of mismatched couples in 1900 Sweden sort out their messy love lives during a weekend in the country. South African star Glynis Johns was the first to sing Send in the Clowns. Over the years, it has been covered, most notably, by such super-talents as Dame Judy Dench, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and perhaps most notably, the folk singer Judy Collins.

Sondheim’s haunting lyrics go:

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped
Opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother they're here

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year...

It goes without saying that the current administration represents the worst, most corrupt (and corruptible), evil, venal, immoral, and absolutely unscrupulous in America’s 250-year history. Perhaps even worse, its Cabinet and higher-ranking officials have precious little - if anything - to show in the way of intelligence, experience, or particular skill set. About the only things they have in common are an unshakeable loyalty to their golf-playing boss and, except in but a few cases, a minimum of $1 billion in assets. Among the highest-ranking members of the regime are:

The “crummy conspiratorialist,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who knows less about medicine and medical research than a choreographer does about colorectal surgery;
Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth, whose C.V. includes 7 years (2017-2024) as co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend, and likely sports more tats than any other Cabinet member in American history. Impeachment proceedings were filed against Hegseth, but before Congress could hold a single hearing, Speaker Mike Johnson put the House on extended leave, thus making that protocol impossible for the time being.
FBI Director Kashyap (Kash) Pramod Patel, best known for serving less than 3 months as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, less than 2 months as Director of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives, and a brief stint as a board member of Trump Media & Technology Group
Thomas Fugate (now age 23), known as “The Intern Who is in Charge.” Within a year of graduating from the University of Texas, and with no apparent national security expertise, Thomas Fugate became the Department of Homeland Security official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism. Before stepping into the federal role, Fugate worked on Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, interned at the Heritage Foundation, and worked a standard college job as an H-E-B grocery clerk.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career

The more I read or listen to these lyrics, the more I have to believe Sondheim had #47 in mind. Nowhere does the song mention the constant lying, his harming the lives of the nation’s sick and hungry, the world’s abjectly indigent and endangered. And yet, it’s all there. Some argue that Congress should take steps to institute the 25th Amendment or start up the engine of impeachment. The man is obviously suffering from severe malaise - if not proto-frontal dementia or Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). It’s hard to sleep knowing that this “cream-faced loon” (vide Macbeth, Act 5, Scene III) has the nuclear codes just inches from his stubby fingers. And it’s absolutely unfathomable that no Republican possesses the guts or grit to even utter a single syllable about impeaching “the son and heir of a mongrel bitch" (again, vide King Lear, Act 2, Scene II).

Ah, but look at who has knocked at the door: Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, whose last day in Congress will be January 4, 2027. Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and an authority on the U.S. Constitution’s impeachment provisions, introduced last Thursday (Sept. 9th) 26 Articles of Impeachment against POTUS. The articles cite multiple abuses of power, violations of his oath of office, the corrupt use of the pardon power, and emoluments clause violations, among other misconduct and unlawful acts.

I do love farce; just so long as it comes from the mind, soul, and pen of such farceurs as Aristophanes (Lysistrata), Plautus (The Pot of Gold), Moliere (The Miser) George Feydeau (A Flea in Her Ear), Sir Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, John Cleese or the Marx Brothers. I take not a second’s delight when farce comes out the White House or Capitol Hill.

But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year...