Greetings and welcome to this action-packed 83rd edition of the Carnival of Fools! Before I adjourned for the Easter holiday — and after withholding my public judgment for over a month — I wrote with immense pessimism about the likely strategic outcome of the Iran war in light of Donald Trump’s brief (and belated) address to the American people on April 1. I stand by that assessment.
But that can be set aside for a moment; right now I feel a bit like Al Davis, (in)famous owner of the Raiders, whose football motto is mine in any war America finds itself involved in: “Just win, baby.” And deep in the mountains of Iran, the American military just executed a rescue operation so daring, so uniquely expressive of American determination and capability, that the only possible response is to stand up and cheer — and wait for the movie version to hit theaters in a year or two.
Rescue Dawn
By now you’ve likely already heard some of the story: On Friday morning of April 3, an F-15 Strike Eagle, flying on a deep penetration bombing run out of RAF Lakenheath in England, was shot down by Iranian anti-aircraft fire. (It is the first time the U.S. has lost a manned jet in combat during the war.) The two-man crew — their names are currently being kept under wraps — ejected immediately, landing far apart in the arid mountains of southwestern Iran, with hordes of regime soldiers now on the hunt for the most valuable wartime prize of all: U.S. military hostages.
The pilot was retrieved by our boys almost immediately. But his crewmate, a weapons system officer, was out of pocket — and initially feared dead. Although wounded during the ejection/landing, the officer ascended a 7,000-foot mountain ridge and hid himself in a crevice to avoid surveillance, as he activated his homing beacon.
The rest of the story reads like a triumphant Hollywood action flick, except that this actually happened. The details will positively thrill you: Apparently the United States currently has such dominance over Iranian airspace that it has set up its own temporary airstrip inside the country, in anticipation of such an event. (We set it up near Isfahan of all places, which is a central node in the nervous system of Iranian military power — akin to Russia setting up a temporary air base outside Detroit to exfiltrate someone from the outskirts of Pittsburgh.)
I invite you to read up on the details yourself, because if you ever doubted America’s continued logistical and problem-solving excellence, this is the story that will revive your flagging hopes — basically the military version of an Apollo 13 scenario. (In that sense, it happens to dovetail nicely with the successful launch of the Artemis II mission: America can still do big, difficult things.)
And that is what really matters. The usual foreign trolls offered their trolling snark on social media over the weekend, mocking the millions of dollars of expensive aircraft the Americans willingly torched on their way out of Iran, after a major hiccup in the attempted extraction. And in doing so, these people predictably missed the point: Yes, America will set as much money on fire as necessary to get our military men and women out of harm’s way, alive. We can do it, and we damn well will do it. Every soldier, sailor, and pilot implicitly understands this — do your part, and America will do its part to get you home — and it is but one of the many reasons that people with the sort of initiative and talent to do nearly impossible things (like get a hunted man out from deep behind enemy lines without a single loss of life) sign up to fight for the United States in the first place.
In any event: I want to see this movie, and I want it greenlit yesterday. There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be in theaters by next year. Get me McQuarrie on the screenplay; Peter Berg can direct — he was made for this sort of material. I want Chalamet in a buzz cut as the improbably elfin weapons system officer, Tom Cruise pounding the table like a military version of Les Grossman at CENTCOM, Wahlberg as the guy who does his job, and Javier Bardem as a steely-eyed Iranian bad guy. I read in Variety about how the movie industry is abandoning shooting in the Los Angeles area, and I think: You can film this instant epic at Vasquez Rocks to boost the economy. Hollywood can make this happen, and they’ve got no excuse not to.
Trump Goes Full Frank Booth on Iran
But then again there’s a chance we’ll all forget about the rescue after today, because Iran’s life-sustaining infrastructure may be about to get leveled for an entire generation. Yes, in one of those programming notes that unavoidably affects the Carnival of Fools, Donald Trump has promised to unleash the apocalypse upon Iran later on today, after the publication of this piece. The timing is unfortunate for me professionally, but at least we can’t say we weren’t warned:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.
Trump sent this missive to the world on Easter Sunday, which afforded the opportunity for ample commentary about how the president of the United States chose Christianity’s most solemn holiday to praise Allah. But I think we can all recognize sarcasm when we see it — typing in all caps helps. How many recognize, however, how eerily Donald Trump now seems to be channeling Frank Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet with his escalating threats?
I suppose the president thinks he is “sending a message” by warning that he will now savage Iran’s roads, bridges, desalinization plants, and the like. But it feels like cartoon logic to me: The regime seeks ideological survival above all else and will not bend to such warnings. Meanwhile the rest of the world gets to see what it looks like when the leader of the free world takes to huffing nitrous to relieve tension.
Whatever Happened to That Texas Senate Endorsement?
You remember the first round of the Texas Senate primary, right? Of course you do, if you’re a reader; I beat that topic down into the ground like it owed me money. The unnerving progressive James Talarico dispatched celebrity eyelash model Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic contest, whereas the Republican race went into overtime, with Gollum-like Attorney General Ken Paxton placing just behind incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
The morning afterward, out came President Trump to bluster on Truth Social that he would pass judgment on this matter soon — and expected to be listened to:
The Republican Primary Race for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas . . . cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. . . . I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in November!!!
That was on March 4. Over a month later — silence. What happened? Oh, I could speculate, but I won’t. I can still wonder, however.
Jo Adell, Angel in the Outfield
The greatest thing of all about the Major League Baseball season is that between late March and October, there’s always a game on. I love the sport on its own terms, which I sort of have to, given that my team is atrocious and has been for several years. (The Nationals sold their souls to Ol’ Scratch in order to win the World Series in 2019 — as proven by the fact that the world temporarily ended for a year and a half immediately afterward.) If, like me, you just dig baseball on an elemental level, then when the regular season begins, here are 2,340 games’ worth of it to tide you over!
And what happened on Saturday was proof of that for me, once again. Jo Adell of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (just call them the Halos) put on a defensive clinic in right field for the ages while facing off against divisional rivals the Seattle Mariners (just call them perpetually snakebitten). In a bitterly contested 1–0 game — the Halos scored their only run on a first-inning leadoff homer — Adell robbed not one, not two, but three home runs from the Mariners. The last of these sent Adell sprawling into the right-field stands beyond the foul pole, one of those amazingly athletic highlights that could have come straight out of the clip reel from John Fogerty’s “Centerfield.”
So here’s to Halo Jo — and here’s to a sport that remains beautiful, graceful, and thrilling, no matter how many years pass by. I might grow older, but baseball never can.
Until next week.