A couple of recent articles in The New York Times show just how annoyed the national media is getting at so far being unable to find something wrong with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Why hasn’t he called Donald Trump a fathead on Twitter yet?! Where are all the women who want to accuse him of being a rapist?! Why won’t he back down from positions that are popular with voters?!
Admittedly, it’s never too late for any one of those scenarios to become a reality, and Republicans rarely justify high hopes. But for now, the Times has had to settle on attacking DeSantis for not being more readily attackable.
To that end, Times book reviewer Jennifer Szalai’s take on DeSantis’ newly published book is that it’s a mega letdown, “free of anything that resembles charisma, or a discernible sense of humor.” Whereas a previous book DeSantis wrote was “weird and esoteric,” Szalai was disappointed in the new one that “reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT.”
Translation: Why wasn’t there anything for me to call racist?! Why Didn’t Ron include something that’s readily mocked as “election denialism”?!
I have no doubt the book is a bore. Politician books always are. (Especially Trump’s, which is why you’ve never seen a single line from it quoted anywhere.) But if that’s the No. 1 problem with a likely presidential candidate who has engaged — and won! — some highly consequential political battles, it seems to be slightly beside the point.
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