A Cross on her Neck and Lies on her Tongue

...good looks can't sanitize a lying heart

Mismatch between words and demeanor

Katie Britt is a 42-year-old mother of two and a US Senator from Alabama. She is just one year into her first term but she was recruited to offer the Republican response to Joe Biden’s March 7 State of the Union speech.

Why was Britt chosen for this role despite her short Senatorial tenure? Maybe because the GOP has a problem with women voters, especially since the draconian measures many red states have imposed since the Republican judges tossed aside Roe? Maybe because her youth and telegenic appearance would contrast positively with the wizened but wise Joe Biden ?

Turns out the President’s SOTU speech was a hard act to follow. And Britt turned out to be a poor messenger.

If you watched any of her speech, chances are you were struck by the bizarre mismatch between her demeanor and delivery and her words as she described a dystopian state of life in America today. Her script was right out of Trump’s “American Carnage” inauguration speech. But it came with smiles and weird inflections.

See a sample here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1766084081324835028 .

False piety as she lies about migrant rape victim

But those stage blunders were just that — poor acting. She can be forgiven for them. But what is infuriating — and tells us about not only HER character but also that of the party (should I say cult?) she represents — is her hypocrisy and abject dishonesty.

She came into view conspicuously wearing a cross around her neck, doubtless to appeal to evangelicals, Christian Nationalists, and religious fanatics.

Then she debased herself. Attempting to demagogue the migrant/border challenges we face, she told a story of a trip she made to the border in 2023 soon after entering the Senate…Britt said:

“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartel at the age of 12. She told me not that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped…We wouldn’t be ok with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”

The obvious implication here is that this atrocity occurred recently, during the current administration, and due to its policies. It certainly is the conclusion she wanted her audience to come away with.

BUT IT WAS KNOWING DISINFORMATION! What she described happened not recently, but in 2004-2008 during the G.W. Bush administration.

And it took place not in the US but in Mexico…As the WAPO fact-checker column points out:

“…Sean Ross, Britt’s communications director, confirmed that she was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero — who has testified before Congress about being forced to work in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008. (A viral TikTok by journalist Jonathan Katz first revealed that Britt was speaking about Jacinto.) In a phone conversation and a statement, Ross disputed that Britt’s language was misleading.”

So the poseur wearing the cross was lying…maybe not technically “lying,” but certainly knowingly trying to create an impression that was false. And she knew it. She’s done it before, it turns out. So let’s say she was “lying in spirit.” And can you believe her communications director “disput[ing] that Britt’s language was misleading”?!

Such lies are of a piece with today’s Republicans…virtually EVERY ONE OF THEM…and we need to hold them to account

Readers of this blog probably have already seen reports about Britt’s mischaracterization of the facts. So why do I take your time to tell you something you already know? Because lots of your less-tuned-in relatives, friends, and neighbors don’t have those facts, and I am hoping you will share this blog post with some of them.

And I also write about it even at the risk of redundancy to emphasize to even y’all that this behavior is not limited to Britt. The Congress is littered with representatives who lied about the 2020 election…who continue to lie daily when it serves their purposes.

George Santos was an extreme, but in many ways his lies were harmless (except to the constituents he duped) compared to the intentional lies and malevolence related to policies and politics by the Jim Jordans and Scott Perrys and James Comers, and the Lindsey Grahams, Josh Hawleys, and Ted Cruzes….

…Finally so that we don’t go out on a downer, here’s SNL’s take on Britt’s performance.

For more on this…..

Liar, Liar, Credibility on Fire Adam Kinzinger in his Substack blog

Katie Britt’s Kitchen Nightmare Molly Jong-Fast in Vanity Fair

White House hits Britt for ‘debunked lies’ in State of the Union rebuttal Brett Samuels in The Hill

Sen. Katie Britt Responds to Criticism of Misleading Border Story Jack McCordick in Vanity Fair