Louisiana Voice

First, he announced he would run against Bill Cassidy for Cassidy’s U.S. Senate seat. But then, State Sen. Blake Miguez (R-New Iberia) lowered his sights (a pun in reference to his proficiency as a marksman) and entered the crowded race to succeed 5^th District Rep. Julia Letlow who is running against Cassidy.

That’s his derogatory, as a former mayor of an area city once said to a critic at a city council meeting I was covering, even though he has been accurately described as a “carpetbagger” by an opponent in that House race because he lives far outside the 5^th District.

But his latest TV campaign ad almost made me hurl, toss my cookies, drive the porcelain bus, yawn the technicolor yawn. Puke, in other words.

Let it be made clear that I don’t have a dog in this hunt. He’s running in a Repugnantcan primary and not being Repugnantcan, I cannot vote for any of the candidates anyway. Still, there’s this TV ad…

A solemn Miguez turns to an American flag and recites the Pledge of Allegiance, proclaiming at the end that he is loyal both to the flag and is a patriotic American.

Well, who isn’t? I’m patriotic. His opponents, I’m certain, are patriotic. So what? That alone is no more a qualification to hold office than being an expert shot in a pistol competition.

But here’s the rub. He has the full endorsement of Donald Trump.

Now let’s connect the dots.

Gregory Crittendon Jr. was an officer with the D.C. police department when he arrived at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to help quell a riot, an insurrection, that occurred at the urging of one Donald Trump.

When he got to the Capitol, he was assaulted by rioters, thugs, who were there to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. They battered Crittendon with…the American flag. “I’m a police officer, I support the American flag and yet, there I was getting stuck with it,” he told The Washington Post.

And here’s the biggest insult: A bronze plaque honoring law enforcement officers who defended the seat of American democracy that day, intended to commemorate the service of Crittendon and other police officers who were beaten with flagpoles (like Samuel Mott), drenched in pepper spray (like Jesse Leasure) and beaten, yanked and bruised (like Carlton Wilhoit III), somehow managed to leave their names off. Nor was the name of Jeffrey Smith, who was beaten so badly with his own baton that he took his own life nine days after the riot, to be found on the plaque–which, by the way Repugnantcans fought successfully for years to keep if from being displayed for public viewing. Even now, it’s mounted on a basement wall, where the public is not allowed access. How’s that for honor?

And yet, Blake Miguez has the cajones to stand there all serious and full of good ol’ American pride as he recites the Pledge while accepting the endorsement of the very man who instigated the assault on the American seat of democracy, the man who told the mob to “march down to the Capitol,” the may who had the authority to call off the dogs but refused to do so for 187 minutes, choosing instead to watch the mob chant “Hang Mike Pence,” smear the Capitol walls with excrement and use the American flag as a weapon against peace officers, a man directly responsible for the six deaths that occurred during the riot or in its aftermath.

Sorry, Blake Miguez. You can’t have it both ways. You loyalty is to the flag or to Trump.

Not both.