It’s a new day for everybody’s favorite lovable rogue, George.
Good news, readers: My muse is finally free. Yes, once again butterflies are free to fly away, high away, as former Representative George Santos — once a Republican from a Long Island swing seat in New York, later a jailbird — has today had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump:
George Santos was somewhat of a “rogue,” but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison. I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard “Da Nang Dick” Blumenthal came up again. As everyone remembers, “Da Nang” stated for almost twenty years that he was a proud Vietnam Veteran, having endured the worst of the War, watching the Wounded and Dead as he raced up the hills and down the valleys, blood streaming from his face. He was “a Great Hero,” he would leak to any and all who would listen — And then it happened! He was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD. He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else. His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP. This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN! George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!
Well then! I suppose there’s no point in mentioning that this week began with Trump opportunistically targeting John Bolton for conducting business as usual among Washington elites, and ends with him commuting the sentence of a felon who accepted a plea deal on 24 federal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. That’s just the sort of presidency we’re living under right now, and it remains to be seen whether Trump’s use of the Justice Department to so openly punish his enemies and help his friends becomes the new norm. (As for Bolton himself, I am torn: I consider the charges to be both vulgarly obvious payback, as well as a fairly clear-cut case of “live by the sword, die by the sword.”)
But let’s try to look on the bright side: It’s a new day for everybody’s favorite lovable rogue, George! For whatever reason, Trump framed his commutation of Santos’s prison sentence in terms of a lengthy attack on Connecticut’s Dick Blumenthal, who once infamously lied about having served in Vietnam. And it is indeed true that Blumenthal is less a United States senator than he is a golem, void of intellect or spirit, clumsily sculpted to resemble a politician. But when it comes to COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUDS even Tricky Dick must yield pride of place to our old friend George, who:
1.) Ran for office as an out and proud gay man
2.) While concealing a marriage to a Brazilian woman
3.) Whom he met while performing in Rio de Janeiro as a drag queen under the nom-de-diva “Kitara Ravache”
4.) And covered all of this up in his campaign by instead claiming to have worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker during this time.
Read that list again, for even in our modern era of spectacular political flameouts, it represents a rare level of achievement. (You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.) And remember: None of those things were even illegal. It was not George Santos’s previously unknown career as a drag queen that destroyed him; it was his penchant for wild, freewheeling fundraising fraud.
But the financial shenanigans merely felt like a natural, almost expected, expression of the man’s obvious personality flaws. Of course somebody with Santos’s quasi-sociopathic relationship with the truth would find himself casually lying to people on the phone for money — it’s like predicting that overcast skies tend to lead to rainy results, among other things.
I can’t do full justice to the comic outrageousness of the lies Santos told about himself, so one anecdote shall have to suffice: During his 2022 congressional campaign in a heavily Jewish district, Santos claimed constantly to be “Jewish” or “half-Jewish,” but when finally called on it by reporters, he said that they had misinterpreted him. He meant only that he was “Jew-ish” — you see, he had so very many Jewish friends that he felt like he was practically one of them. (The absolute chutzpah.)
George Santos remains the most self-destructively over-his-skis political liar I have yet encountered during my professional writing career. I consider him the honorary Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Carnival of Fools, and I honestly did not expect his feats of self-invention and self-delusion to ever be topped, for few have ever actively courted their own doom so publicly. But a new challenger always comes along eventually, and a few weeks ago we all read The One About the Illegal Alien School Superintendant. Now he has real competition from “Doctor” Ian Roberts, which is no doubt the reason why Trump is having Roberts deported — Santos deserves to have this particular circle of honor all to himself.
But what now for our newly freed antihero? I am an optimist. This is a man who has made so many brand-new starts in life, what’s one more at this point? In fact I counsel bold action: Now that President Trump has rehabilitated George Santos in the eyes of MAGA Republicans, I think it’s time for him to hit the political comeback trail. I hear there’s a marquee Senate race coming up in New York in 2028. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may seek to take out Chuck Schumer, but it won’t really matter either way, as both of those palookas will be easily steamrolled by the Santos for Senate ’28 juggernaut. And if it doesn’t work out, Trump can always make him ambassador to Brazil.