US Sen. Hawley's last ride

When US Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo, looked squarely into the cameras to address the darker heart of America the evening after the riots, he argued for a special commission to examine the legality of the General Election vote and the electors of Pennsylvania, I saw that he had been completely carried away by dirty sophistry in the service of white-nationalist ideology and that disaster lay in his immediate future. An image of the downfall of this pathetic product of Stanford and Yale came to mind and stayed there in the following days. Sometimes bull riders get their hands hung up in their bull ropes on top of the bull so that when they are either bucked off or try to dismount after the buzzer their hand stays caught in the rope and they flop around like rag dolls on the side of the bull or underneath him as the bullfighting clowns try to get him loose to stop the terrific beating he is taking. Hawley tried to ride The Trump. He ended up losing his mentor, former US Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., a very powerful Republican who has held both elected and appointed positions and contributed a great deal of money to the GOP. Danforth is an heir to the Ralston-Purina Pet Food fortune and is one of the most powerful people in St. Louis, economically, politically, socially, and religiously in his role as an ordained Episcopal priest. Hawley might as well not even try to make it back to the chutes for another run. Danforth declared: "Supporting Josh Hawley and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life." -- blj