Admiral Jackson: Let's All Take A Beat

About these allegations against Admiral Jackson. This is a puzzling story. I smell a rat. Something is off about this whole thing.

First of all, these salacious stories about Admiral Jackson's history of excessive drinking and rage-fueled abusive rants are just rumors, at this point. That's the word missing from this national gossip train. I'm disappointed and pissed at the media furor that's treating this like it is all fact. Maybe it'll be proven true, but does it really ring true? Have the ring of truth? Because I don't hear it. I hear a Bullshit Alarm.

You've got this guy, the White House doctor. He's career military and by all accounts an outstanding person and a terrific doctor. He's had a stellar record, he's decorated. He's been repeatedly recognized by people we trust. So what is this really about?

Is Shonda Rhimes writing this season of America?

Rumors make for sensational "news" but it is worrisome to me that all these accusations against Admiral Jackson are only coming from one single guy, Senator Jon Tester.

Tester is claiming that there are dozens of people coming forward telling him these things anonymously, but how do we know that? I don't know anything about Tester. He sounds like an Onion article name made-up. Maybe he's fabricating these allegations. Or maybe he is actually getting this information revealed to him, as he says, anonymously, but then again maybe it's the same person sending him dozens of claims. That would be so easy to pull off and any number of motives for some Washington swamp rat, who knows. We don't know that these allegations are true, is the point. There is no evidence, and so far as we know there has been no inquiry. No corroboration. 

Not only is this all, so far, nothing but a crazy rumor told by a lesser-known Senator, but to my ear there is something too same-y about the phrasing and the vocabulary used in all of these "anonymous" reviews of Dr. Jackson. It's too specific or something, more than what could be accounted for by the fact that these tattlers are all military. I can't explain exactly why, but it sounds like a bunch of baloney.

IF there's any truth to the claims against Admiral Jackson, then the top three questions would be:

A) Which leaders above Jackson knew, all these years, that he was acting in this terrible way, and rather than discipline him or demote him, let him keep working up through ranks? 

That just doesn't sound like how it works.

B) If it's all true, how the hell was it so well-hidden?  

It seems so unlikely that such a long, violent record wouldn't have been made known by staffers from the previous administrations. I never agreed with W ever in his whole stupid Presidency, but I can't see Georgie knowing about all this and giving the doc a pass. He's a simple man, but he's not mean-spirited. He's a dolt of a leader, but a right proper American patriot. I'll always give W that mission accomplished. And Obama, no. Barack would not let that shit slide, come on. Ruling out "they knew and did nothing," then that leaves "they didn't know," so I ask how the hell was it so well-hidden? Washington is the sunken place where we get opinions for weeks when a President says he doesn't like a certain kind of vegetable. Obama was hated so vociferously by this new breed of McConnell-fanned Republican that, had this scandal been part of his White House, we'd have heard about it, don't you think?

C) If these allegations are true, wouldn't all that behavior count towards being susceptible to blackmail, which is the single biggest red alert for anyone employed by the White House, we now know because now everything is so insane that ordinary people know shit like that? 

Thanks to the never-ending parade of Trump clowns tripping each other in this circus of an administration, we all now know exactly what it takes to get cleared through the FBI vetting process. The average American has been made painfully aware of where the bar is, and what places a White House staffer firmly below the acceptable. You smoke a metric ton of pot? Thank you for letting us know, you are good to go, do a good job and God Bless America. But if you're coming into the White House hiding a secret so big that it could get you fired and court-martialed, that's a whole different thing.

Dr. Jackson, this does not look good, sir. 

Another possibility is that this Dr. Jekyll actually has been pulling off this sinister double life all these years, and in fact has been blackmailed over it already. Because this is the man who looked into the face of America and told us all that Donald J. Trump weighs 239 and is super healthy. There's a reason a whole segment of America went, "Ohhhhhh, I get it now." Because nobody could figure out why he'd spout those blatant falsehoods. Dr. Jackson definitely did undermine his own character that day, and people have been waiting for a motive to make itself apparent. 239, man? Come on. You know we can SEE him. What. Are you doing.

The other weight on the scale against Dr. Jackson's integrity is the part about offering sleepy-time and wakey-wakey drugs on the international flights. That does ring true. Is it maybe not so good...yeah, not so good, but doesn't it seem like every White House doc has helped out the people on these long international flights? It sounds like it's a widely-known "secret" amongst the members of the press, and now they're gleefully reporting it like it's shocking, I tell ya, just shocking. 

But that's exactly how you lend credence to outrageous rumors: by attaching them to something that is true. All the members of the press who have personally taken part in the the sleepy-time/wakey-wakey party on the plane (or have heard about it) know that happened, and so the rest of it seems just as likely to be true...?

Let's all take a beat. Guys, you need to be doing better. This is going to turn out to be a total fiasco.

True or completely made up fairy tales, either way, shouldn't these Tester accusations have been investigated and thoroughly corroborated BEFORE Tester went public with them? Isn't the first call to the FBI, not to MSNBC? How bizarre. Is that even legal? Isn't there a law or something? I didn't go to law school (regrets) but somethin' somethin' innocent until proven guilty? Isn't that like the FIRST THING?

All that being said, Admiral Jackson's qualifications do not meet the minimum required for the job that idiot nominated him for, that was never going to happen. Then again, look who we f**king elected. ∎