So how dumb have things gotten? Well, put on your lobster bib — here’s a taste.
On Thursday, singer/actor Billy Ray Cyrus posted a nice message to the First Lady of the United States.
Being a good-natured guy, he wished her well on her path to recovery from COVID-19 and thanked her for her work on suicide prevention.
The topic’s particularly close to Billy Ray’s heart — at 18, his best friend took his own life.
As noted by The Daily Caller, BR tweeted thusly:
“Hope you are feeling better @FLOTUS. This photo was almost exactly a year ago. Thank you again for the compassion and time you shared with Channing’s Dad and his bother.”
Last November, the “Achy Breaky Heart” hitmaker offered onliners a photo from his meeting with Melania:
What an honor to sit w/The First Lady at the White House. @FLOTUS Your sincerity was truly inspiring. You/your team were so engaged to Channing's grieving father & brother & brought ideas/strategy to make the world a safer better place for the youth in America #JusticeForChanning pic.twitter.com/U7Pt6qTXzD
— Billy Ray Cyrus (@billyraycyrus) November 19, 2019
Apparently, what would’ve in centuries past been viewed as amiable outreach and grand gratitude got treated to a bit of the ol’ social media filleting.
The trollish deboning was such that Billy Ray felt compelled to describe his entire history with Washington.
Here he goes, while in passing praising Mrs. Trump for a kindness you won’t soon discover via MSNBC:
“I am sitting here reading the comments on my last post thinking… #WhatToHeck! But I am also happy to see you all so passionated about this election; that means democracy is alive and well. The picture I posted with Melania was not an endorsement, but a reflection on a special moment I had human to human with her over a heartbreaking story about a young teenage boy who killed himself after being bullied. The First Lady met with me and his grieving father to talk about how we can help fix this problem. We were only expecting a few minutes of her time, but she ended up speaking with us for over an hour. She had asked why this issue was so important to me, and I told her that I unfortunately lost my best friend to suicide at 18 years old. I had brought his picture, and she held it in her lap for the entire visit.”
But don’t stake him through the heart, haters — Dracula’s got blue blood:
“To be honest, I come from a long line of Democrats. My father, who I have always looked up to, worked in the Kentucky state legislature for 20 years and was the head of the Kentucky AFLCIO… in fact, somewhere out there i sa photo of me as a teenager with my father and Joe Biden when he came to meet with my dad and the AFLCIO in Kentucky! My father always fought for the rights of the incredible working class folks in Kentucky and told me it was important to do the same.”
Billy Ray recalled his brush with the Bushes — George and Barbara, that is — in 1992.
https://twitter.com/billyraycyrus/status/1314398701666828292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1314398701666828292%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F10%2F09%2Fbilly-cyrus-melania-trump-coronavirus-well-wishes-suicide-prevention-be-best%2F
Later, he hung out with Hillary’s husband:
“Then a few years later, Bill Clinton asked me to perform with him on several occasions. He was from Arkansas and ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ has the line ‘You can tell your ma, I moved to Arkansas’ and he really liked that. During his second term, he and Al Gore invited me to join them on the train through Eastern Kentucky so I could show them the concerns of some of the more impoverished areas and issues I wanted brought to their attention.”
When George W. was running for prez, on the advice of his father, Billy Ray allowed the country music-lovin’ candidate to use his song “We the People” on the trail.
But don’t get Mr. Cyrus wrong — he’d rather Al have given it a campaign crank.
(2/3) pic.twitter.com/dpknFNpzaV
— Billy Ray Cyrus (@billyraycyrus) October 9, 2020
And yes, Trigger Warning: He was “honored to perform with (daughter) Miley at the Kids Inaugural Ball for [Barack Obama] and his family.”
So everyone should calm down — Billy Ray’s message for Melania wasn’t meant as political props:
“I felt the need to explain my background and make it clear; I am not endorsing anybody. I am listening, watching, and you best believe voting… and I hope you are too.”
(3/3) pic.twitter.com/sgpUqq91q3
— Billy Ray Cyrus (@billyraycyrus) October 9, 2020
Back to my question, how dumb have things gotten? So dumb that a pleasant Thanks requires an essay of alibi.
To be clear, that’s no blast against Billy Ray. Neither is my headline — we’ve all lived through the same trends; he just happens to have also sold 20 million copies of a debut album, released 32 charting singles, and starred in a top television show. And — the best I can tell — remained a very nice person (I’m a fan).
Like the rest of us, he’s a prisoner of our present preposterousness. It’s downright…achy breaky.
2020, you’re doing this…to all of us:
-ALEX
See more pieces from me:
Herschel Walker Slams Democrats’ Pandering Pay-Off of Reparations
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