Greetings and welcome to this banner 58th performance of the Carnival of Fools! First of all, let me express my hope that you had a happy Columbus Day, one of those American holidays that got the politically correct axe years ago but that I still enjoy. New York’s Columbus Day parade was canceled because of inclement weather, alas — God decided to wreak stormy vengeance upon the American Northeast for its sins — but here in the Windy City we managed to pull ours off with slightly less street crime than Sunday morning’s Chicago Marathon. Here’s to our Italian-American friends and to the New World!
The Man of the Hour Speaks
And since Joe Biden (or Joe Biden’s autopen) substituted “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” for “Columbus Day” back in 2021, it feels like the right time to extend a warm Indigenous Peoples’ Day greeting to the nation of Israel, back in the Old World. Monday morning brought an immense wave of relief after all 20 of the living Israeli hostages, held in Gaza by Hamas for two years, were returned to their families.
I already wrote a lengthy piece praising Trump and his team’s efforts in bringing off the cease-fire deal and getting those innocents back home safely — but I foolishly wrote it on Friday, when the deal still could conceivably have fallen apart. Thankfully it all worked out, and now the only thing left to do is enjoy all the sour grapes from progressives whining that Trump had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this.
I stand by every word of it, and in retrospect particularly those I wrote about the manifest effectiveness of Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. I will repeat only my core thesis: This doesn’t happen with President Kamala Harris or President Mitt Romney – and honestly, probably not even with the negotiating team a President DeSantis would have assigned to this task, either. (For one thing, I doubt DeSantis would have sent his son-in-law and a completely uncredentialed businessman buddy.)
Whatever else Trump’s many other demerits — the man is the ringleader of the Carnival of Fools, after all — this must weigh immensely in his favor in any final assessment of his presidency, just as the strike on Iran’s Fordow reactor does. (We’re nowhere near close to a final assessment yet anyway, folks.) He was the leader necessary to make this moment happen, and I consider it a test of bare intellectual honesty to acknowledge as much.
So it was with a sort of reassured delight that I took in Trump’s speech to the Knesset on Monday afternoon in Jerusalem: Ah, same ol’ Trump. Some might have hoped for a few minutes of muscular oratory from the man of the hour, emphasizing the new order in the Middle East and the United States’ friendship with Israel. And they got that — along with another extra 40 minutes of spontaneous, purely unfiltered Trump. That’s what I was hoping for.
There was all sorts of off-topic rambling, as the president regularly interrupted his own train of thought to toss in whatever came to mind — praise for Miriam Adelson here, an impassioned appeal to pardon Netanyahu there. (The look on the face of Israeli President Isaac Herzog when Trump addressed him directly to ask for his bitter enemy’s pardon was worth the price of admission alone.) For a full hour he held court, soaking in the moment exactly like you would expect Trump to.
You may have thought it inappropriate, because of course it was. But then again, this is a man who stepped on the moment with his own post-assassination-attempt nomination speech back in 2024; did you expect any different on Monday? He’s not about to deliver the Gettysburg Address in 272 words, my friends.
They say that old dogs can’t learn new tricks, but the truth of it is that Trump doesn’t think he has anything to learn. (Given that he is the president of the United States, one can see the logic of his position.) And I want to be clear when I say that I’m not leveling a criticism, not this time. I myself have grown strangely accustomed to “the Full Trump” at this point — on a comedic level, if nothing else — and the only reason I’m even bringing this topic up is that I now lament that we will probably never get to hear what would almost certainly have been the greatest Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech ever delivered.
Diane Keaton, the Woman of My Dreams
Like many others, I note the passing of actress Diane Keaton with sadness. A fantastic actress who brought an ineffable lightness and supple nuance to even the most thankless of roles, she will forever be known for her work in some of the Seventies’ most classic films. I feel a special sadness as well, for she was one of the Young Jeff’s earliest (and only) “movie crushes.” She was my “manic pixie dream girl” before such a concept even existed in popular culture.
I had already seen Keaton in many films before I reached college (including not just the Godfather films but the remake of Father of the Bride). But when I finally encountered her as Annie Hall, I saw a very different side of Keaton — playing a young modern woman, in all of her comic allure. I thought of her as close to feminine perfection, or at least my version of it: smart, plucky, witty, a little vulnerable, and mysteriously unaware of how effortlessly attractive she was. I still watch that film and think to myself “Christ, Woody — how could you blow it with a woman this perfect?”
Keaton’s career was long and varied — I’m the guy who saw The First Wives Club (in theaters!) before I saw Annie Hall; blame my mom for that one — but for me she will always be the first woman on screen to make me believe that falling head-over-heels for someone was more than a caricature or a fantasy — it was real. So when I finally met my future wife, who immediately reminded me of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, I made extra sure not to blow it the way Woody did. R.I.P. Diane.
Until next week.