"This whole thing has been really surreal and absurd... it’s a relief, but there’s a detachment to that relief of extreme concern for other people and for our country."

Said David Hearn, "the Olympian," quoted in "Judge Dismisses Former Olympian’s Felony Charge in Reflecting Pool Case/The move ends the criminal case for David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, after prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false" (NYT gift link).

"The episode culminated in a consequential showdown in the Oval Office between [Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney], who appeared to be fighting for her job, and Mr. Trump, with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, in attendance. Ms. Pirro told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes. Mr. Trump seemed considerably less angry by day’s end, and Ms. Pirro emerged from the meeting with her job intact, for now."

And here, with a gift link, is "Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro/Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes."

That article, from August 4th, says "This account... demonstrated a core truth of Mr. Trump’s second term: Anyone willing to contradict the president is in trouble, even if the dissenter happens to be a family friend who has faithfully executed his prosecutorial agenda over the years."

Yeah? But Pirro got her way, and she's still there. So much for "a core truth."

"Trump to deport hundreds of bison from Montana."

That's a headline at the London Times.

Subheadline: "The American Prairie Foundation has had its license to graze conservation herds of bison on federal pastures revoked by the Department of the Interior."

From the text: "The Department of the Interior, which has a bison as its logo, has revoked the licence of a rewilding charity trying to restore the natural splendour of the 'American Serengeti,' the eco-diverse range of grasslands home to wolves, pronghorns, grizzly bears and mountain lions.... Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, who owns a ranch in neighbouring North Dakota, has favoured the arguments of cattle farmers eager to graze their cow herds on cheap federal lands instead...."

"The Trump administration has urged professional football’s leaders to induct Theodore Roosevelt into the sport’s hall of fame..."

"... with one top official predicting it will happen within the year.... [Historians and sports experts have said [Theodore] Roosevelt played a crucial role by forcing a national conversation around football safety, rather than leaving it to factions that could not agree on next steps. Edward O’Keefe, the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library pointed to some of the specific changes to football that resulted from Roosevelt’s interventions. 'He helped invent the forward pass,' said O'Keefe. 'He made some of the first safety measures that continue to make the game possible today.'"

From "Trump officials push Theodore Roosevelt for Pro Football Hall of Fame/'I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted,' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at an event on Thursday" (WaPo).

I went looking in Edmund Morris's "Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" for some meatier material about TR and football. I found this on page 598:

“What matters a few broken bones to the glories of inter-collegiate sport?” he cried at a Harvard Club dinner. (Meanwhile, not far away in hospital, the latest victim of football savagery lay paralyzed for life.) He declared publicly that he would “disinherit” any son of his who refused to play college games. And in private, through clenched teeth: “I would rather one of them should die than have them grow up as weaklings.”

"Everybody, don't worry about it. Don't panic. You're gonna be on that island as a tourist for decades and decades to come."

"I mean, you gotta be kidding me. This is going nowhere. This is distraction day in the United States of America."

Says Gavin Newsom — yes, he still has a podcast — addressing Trump's plan/"plan" to turn Alcatraz back into a prison, in "And, This is Escape From Alcatraz" (Podscribe, transcript + audio).

"A million plus people, I think it's 1.2 million last year came to Alcatraz and the island. I think the Park service that runs it generates $60 million a year in revenue. Back to my Doge point, this would cost tens of millions of dollars. You have to bring people onto the island, the workforce and everything else. [Trump] specifically directed his Department of Justice and, and he directed Secretary Burgum to start to put together a plan of action on this. I mean, I pray that they're focused on other things and not focused on the folly of this latest distraction...."

The pervasiveness of "weird" in the mind of Tim Walz.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — in the running for VP — has gotten attention over the past week for purveying the word "weird," but he was calling Republicans "weird" a year ago.

Here's something I blogged August 21, 2023: "Who's the 'most normal' in this 'pretty weird group'?":

The New York Times seems to think Burgum's the one.

There's this in the center of the front page of the website:

   

The Biden "Tall Tales" story is in my screenshot because it's so absurd. The effort to make Biden's stumbling and lying lovable. Look, they even juxtaposed pandas...

Anyway, it's a friendly welcome to Burgum. The first article begins:

Pick a Dakota governor. With the governor of the south in the doghouse, the governor of the north comes down the chimney.

Axios reports:

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is quickly moving up former President Trump's list of possible vice presidential picks because Trump's team believes he would be a safe choice who could attract moderate voters, four people familiar with the situation tell Axios....

Two sources familiar with the Trump's thinking [sic] said he likes Burgum's measured demeanor and his gubernatorial experience — and sees Burgum as reliable and low-drama. Those are similar to the traits Trump cited in 2016, when he tapped Mike Pence....

They share one personal touch point, which the sources said occasionally comes up in conversation between Trump and Burgum: Kathryn Burgum is recovering from alcoholism, an addiction that Trump's late brother Fred Trump Jr. also struggled with....

ADDED: We talked about the Kristi Noem dog story yesterday, here, and I took a little poll. The results:

"[Tim] Scott rarely mentioned a significant other during his decades in politics, and in the ’90s he declared himself a 'proud' adult virgin."

"When Scott launched his presidential campaign last spring, the media noted that he would be the first bachelor president since the 19th century. He tried to shut this down by alluding to a girlfriend in May, then sharing some details about his Christian, pickleball-playing partner with the Washington Post’s Ben Terris in September. This only raised suspicions that Scott had invented a ladyfriend for political purposes...."

From "Tim Scott’s Mystery Girlfriend Is Now His Fiancée" (New York Magazine).

“As a guy who is mostly an introvert and on the quiet side, having to have a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way, but it’s the most exciting thing I’ll do with my life besides making Jesus my Lord,” Scott said in an interview Sunday....

Why is Scott “having to have a conversation about the engagement” if it makes him uncomfortable?...

Is Scott running for VP? Is he in the running? I don't think Trump will pick him. Isn't he needed in the Senate? 

Meanwhile, yesterday, Doug Burgum: 1. Announced he's not running for a third term as Governor of North Dakota, and 2. Spoke at a Trump rally. But it can't be Burgum, can it? It's got to be one of the women, don't you think? Elise Stefanik, Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders....

"Ramaswamy, whom none of the other Republican candidates for President can really seem to stand, either politically or in the most basic human way, spread his arms dramatically..."

"... to indicate the others onstage. 'These are good people, who are tainted by a broken system....' 'Not all of us are tainted!' the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, who is polling around one per cent, called out, and then Scott, Ramaswamy, and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, started speaking all at once. It took close to two minutes for their voices to become fully disentangled. When Ramaswamy tried claiming credit for disinvesting from China, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador, jumped in: 'Yeah, right before you ran for President,' perhaps the lone good line of the crosstalk apocalypse. Ramaswamy did not look flustered—his smile was broad, his hair was piled into a pompadour, his voice was declarative—but he also plainly had no idea what he was trying to say. At one point he tried to break through the noise, saying sardonically to his rivals, 'Thank you for speaking while I’m interrupting.'" 

Writes Benjamin Wallace-Wells, in "'Thank You For Speaking While I'm Interrupting': The Crosstalk Chaos of the Second Republican Debate/The event, which was billed as a chance for Donald Trump’s rivals to change their fortunes, only reinforced the confusion and aimlessness of their candidacies" (The New Yorker).

Here's a clip of that chaos:

Everybody's talking about Doug Burgum.

"If there was one constant on Wednesday night, it was that the Fox News anchor did not want to hear from the North Dakota governor" (The Daily Beast).

"Why is Doug Burgum aggressively injecting himself into the debate, even when he hasn't been asked a question?" (Wall Street Journal).

"I'm not convinced he's a great cowboy — he must shop at Dudes 'R' Us — but upon closer inspection, it appears he's got his boots properly placed in the stirrups. So, he's got that going for him. Git along, little Dougie.... Who in Bismarck has Burgum ever led? Moderates mock him and Trump crazies despise him despite his will-o'-the-wisp willingness to acquiesce to almost anything in the interest of political expediency...." (Inforum).

Who's the "most normal" in this "pretty weird group"?

On "Meet the Press" yesterday, the Democratic Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, was invited to talk about the Republican Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, who is running for the Republican nomination for President. Walz had recently said — at the Iowa State Fair — "I'm not a Republican. And I'm not going to vote in the Republican primary. But if I did, I'd vote for him."

Now, Walz was in Iowa representing the Biden campaign, so his "endorsement" of Burgum is to be understood in that context, but here's what Walz had to say about Burgum on "Meet the Press":

[Y]ou were asking what's going to come out of this debate. The minute they all step on the stage, the American people have lost. Are they going to debate who can ban the most books? Who – you know, Doug, he didn't tell you this, but he signed a six week abortion ban, which is hugely unpopular and simply wrong in America. So yeah, we're friends, but I hate to see it go down this road. Those are very simple questions about – you were asking about the President, about the indictments and so I was a little bit tongue-in-cheek. And the sad part is, I do believe that Doug is probably the most normal of these. That's a pretty weird group of folks that are going to be on the debate stage. Doug's a pretty good guy, but he's trapped in a Republican party with no ideas. 

No ideas? Come on. At least give them credit for having weird ideas. 

Anyway, it seems that "normal" is a very high standard this time around. But it's strange for Democrats to call the whole group of Republican candidates "weird" when, for so long, they've been stressing the singular weirdness of Trump. I'm very susceptible to the argument that we need a President who's at least normal, but there's something abnormal — perverse — about generating the feeling that all the candidates are weird. 

Never heard of? He's been my favorite of the GOP candidates since he started.

I clicked to read George Will's column, "Meet the unusually qualified presidential candidate you’ve never heard of" (WaPo), and while he's wrong about my never having heard of him, I'm thrilled to see some high-level attention to the worthy contender, Doug Burgum.

Snippet:

If wokeness survives Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s hourly onslaughts (which DeSantis might not survive; talking smack about Bud Light is unpresidential), a President Burgum would not regard fighting it as part of his job description. He would be a presidential rarity, acknowledging the 10th Amendment. (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution … are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”) Cultural issues are, he says, irrelevant to presidential duties

"Doug Burgum is offering $20 to people donating $1 to his campaign. Is that legal?"

Asks NPR.

The campaign's offer is good for the first 50,000 donors — and is an unconventional bid to meet the fundraising thresholds required to be onstage for next month's Republican primary debate.... To participate in the debate, candidates must have at least 40,000 donors. They also have to bring in donations from 200 or more donors in at least 20 states.

"He grew up in a small town in North Dakota and mortgaged a piece of farmland he inherited from his dad in order to invest in a company called Great Plains Software."

"He eventually became its CEO and sold it to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. But when he announced he was running for governor in 2016, most people still didn’t know who he was. But he wound up defeating the sitting attorney general 59 percent to 39 percent in the Republican primary. So he has experience winning primaries he wasn’t supposed to win.... His net worth is more than $1 billion, and he’s reportedly willing to self-fund his campaign...."

From "Who Is Doug Burgum, The North Dakota Governor Running For President?" (FiveThirtyEight).

ADDED: Burgum was once a chimney sweep.

"With Gov. Doug Burgum’s money and his family’s vision, Fargo, N.D., has undoubtedly changed in recent decades."

"Broadway, its main drag, is packed with restaurants, cafes, retailers and offices lovingly converted from old factories. Parking lots have been turned into public parks. A warehouse saved from the wrecking ball now houses North Dakota State University’s architecture and arts program. With a population of nearly 127,000 — 16 percent of North Dakota’s total population — the largest city for hundreds of miles is growing, in size and diversity, with a liberal tilt. But as a base for a presidential run, Fargo is still the smallest of towns, closer to Winnipeg, in Canada, than to Minneapolis, the nearest American metropolis...."

From "'A Long Shot, for Sure’: Sizing Up Burgum, and Most of the G.O.P. Field/In North Dakota, Gov. Doug Burgum’s quixotic presidential campaign has people scratching their heads, but then again, many of the 2024 hopefuls have prompted the same wonder" (NYT).

ADDED: Here's his announcement. Judge him for yourself: