Kendall Stanley: Circle the wagons!

As I was writing this, GOP senators were set to scramble to Georgia to provide support for Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate from the Peach State.

As well they should, as Walker is a walking nightmare of a candidate.

I will give you this — he was a great football player. Beyond that, not so much a great human.

Walker reportedly paid a woman to have an abortion and then later asked her to do it again, which she refused. The love child is now 10.

That child is one of four that Walker fathered over the years, mostly in secret. According to his son he was an absent father for all four of them.

He touts his business success (he doesn’t have any), his academic record (not an A student and didn’t graduate from college) and his opposition to abortion (obviously, unless convenient for him).

But Walker has one thing going for him — the former guy absolutely is in his corner!

Yes, personal foibles are mere lies from the fake media and so never mind, here’s your MAGA candidate from the great state of Georgia!

Tommy Tuberville, the senator from Alabama, went on a racist rant at a rally in Nevada with Trump last weekend saying blacks were doing the crimes in the country at the behest of Democrats so they can get them reparations. What?

The Republican response from one members of Congress? Tommy should be more polite.

More polite? Tommy should be run out of Congress on a rail and sent back to Alabama.

What is with the Republican party?

When even Mitch McConnell complains about the quality of the candidates running for Senate (for which he has a decidedly vested interest) you know that the crop isn’t a good one.

The only criteria is fealty to Trump. He’s magnanimous too — if you stray you need only to come groveling back to get into his good graces. What a way to run a political party.

I know there are Democratic candidates out there who are less than sterling but none that I know of who have to bend their knee to a narcissistic leader of the party to get an endorsement.

In the meantime Republican leaders keep scrambling to stay ahead of the outrageous things the candidates are throwing out there, everything from male legislators are best at coming up with abortion regulations to evangelicals who overlook the moral flaws of candidates because it’s not about morality it’s about gaining power.

It’s going to be an ugly few weeks before Nov. 8 rolls around.

Judging Putin

What to make of Vladimir Putin and his threat to use nuclear weapons in his attempt to take over Ukraine.

Certainly Putin has shown over the years that he’s no softie when it comes to running Russia. Opponents have disappeared or been hit with poison gas. Oppose him and plan on getting a long prison sentence based on nothing more than Putin’s animus.

But Putin has backed himself into a corner with Ukraine — he didn’t expect the resolve and fighting morale of the Ukrainians, he didn’t expect them to roll over his troops, pushing them back from lands Putin already held and he didn’t expect them to take the fight for survival into his backyard.

So therein lies the corner he’s painted himself into — use nuclear weapons to try and fulfill his wish to take over Ukraine or come up with some way to back away to lick his wounds. He’s not really the kind to back down but he is also beginning to look like he doesn’t have the wherewithal to end the siege of Ukraine with the arms he has.

Use the nukes? Not unless he’s good with universal world condemnation and forever be known as a pariah state.

A tough spot of his own devices.

— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Kendall Stanley: Circle the wagons!