Tea at Trianon: Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time

From Tierney's Real News:

Trump has always been honest about what he values: battlefield presence, TV “central casting” presence, and the ability to sell his strategies to the public and keep the base fired up.
Pam Bondi did her job — she empaneled grand juries, put boots on the ground in Florida, and set the stage for the prosecutions Trump wanted to see. Ultimately, her track record in cases is the best the DOJ has seen in 50 years. But she never really learned how to play the media board. She is better in a courtroom than on TV.
Bondi is good at the mechanics of the job. She lined up cases. She did her best to put the right prosecutors in place. She cleared the way for the kind of RICO‑style grand conspiracy work now targeting figures like John Brennan. In that sense, she was the perfect rook: you move her straight into the right squares and then let someone else handle the finishing moves.
Trump loved Pam Bondi enough to put her in the Attorney General’s chair, but he also found out she’s not built for the TV war — so he’s moved her to the private sector, where she can amplify his message like Dan Bongino is doing right now - rather than slow‑walk it from inside the DOJ. Remember, President Trump said nobody knows how someone will perform until they are tested. Correct!
Now Tulsi Gabbard, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel, and Joe diGenova are lining up the pieces for what could be the biggest legal reckoning in the deep state’s history.
Trump still loves her, but he’s not blind. He knows that if you’re going to run the Justice Department in a hyper‑visible political war, you need someone who can show up on TV, talk directly to the camera, and keep the Fox‑News‑and‑talk‑radio‑aligned audience engaged. That’s not Bondi’s strength. That’s Blanche’s role now.
Her move to the private sector could be a lot more useful than harmful. She can go out and talk, write, build a media presence, and operate like Dan Bongino — not from inside the bureaucracy, but as an outside voice that amplifies what the administration is doing. That’s often more powerful than a hesitant, over‑cautious mouthpiece in a government chair. (Read more.)