The Senator Who Wants You to Know He's Completely Insane
Last week, New York state senator Greg Ball made a tweet, which as we all know is never a good idea for an elected official whose name sounds like genitals.
"Ball 4 NY" indeed.
Bravely calling for the torture of a 19-year-old American citizen who was already wounded and in police custody, Ball decided to stand tall and spend the next several days showing his constituents exactly why they voted for him: to make irrational decisions motivated entirely by retaliatory emotions, and to respond to every situation with violence.
He Says What He Means (Even Though It's Crazy)
For starters, Ball says what he is thinking and doesn't give one scalding damn if it gets him re-elected or not. In fact, he cares so little about what people think that he reminds us of it constantly, often with the exact same phrasing.
On CNN: "You interview a lot of politicians, a lot of politicians are full of crap, they're scared of their own shadow, and scared to say what they feel. I think that I share the feelings of a lot of red-blooded Americans ..."
On Capital Tonight: "Let's just step back a second. I mean, you making a living out of interviewing politicians and others, and I understand that most politicians are completely full of crap ..."
"Fortunately, I take regular enemas."
To Sean Hannity: "A lot of politicians are full of crap, they refuse to say what they really believe because, 'oh my god, if I say what I really believe, I might not get re-elected.' Maybe this isn't a good part of my re-election strategy, but it's from my heart."
On Fox News: "I think a lot of politicians typically are quite honestly full of crap. They're scared to say how they feel. And I basically said what I believe a lot of red-blooded Americans felt."
There's really nothing like extreme repetition to make a guy look like he's speaking off the cuff and not reciting a carefully rehearsed opinion. That, and palsy-stricken facial expressions:
That isn't a frame-by-frame progression -- Greg Ball holds his eyebrow in a permanent arch, like Spock and Dwayne Johnson in a staring contest.
"I've spent most of my career in mid-stroke."
We cannot say for certain whether this is an intentional part of Greg Ball's meticulously constructed public persona, but based on his Twitter profile picture, it seems equally likely that it stems from a debilitating lack of self-awareness.
"That apostrophe makes him sound like a man I could have a beer with."
Eschewing both a tie and grammar, Ball does his best George Costanza impression for reasons that cannot be explained.
He Wants to Fight (and Shoot) Everyone
During Ball's interview with Piers Morgan, he addressed Morgan as "dude," made fun of his British accent, talked about himself in the third person, and actually challenged the host to arm wrestle. It was as if he was caught between the reality of his job and the Chuck Norris poster that no doubt hangs above his dresser.
"Chuck the world, Pierce. That's what I believe."
On Sean Hannity's show, Ball discussed the best gun to use for fighting terrorists, and on Fox News, he bragged about how he would've beaten bin Laden with a baseball bat (as if a team of highly trained expert soldiers hadn't already made that sentiment completely irrelevant).
Greg Ball overcompensates with more bro-vado than a high school wrestling team. And unless you're Jason Statham, discussing hypothetical revenge murder fantasies while wearing a suit and tie just makes you look like a serial killer.
Terrorists are the political equivalent of zombies: an acceptable way for normal people to talk about mass murder.
He Can't Be Bothered to Make Rational Decisions
Considering that Ball's position is in the Senate and not on the A-Team, we would assume he is aware that telling us how many terrorists he could choke slam in his garage doesn't have much to do with public interest. Most of us are much more interested in the kinds of policies he supports.
But alas, as he explained to Capital Tonight, Greg Ball is not one for policy makin':
"It's easy to have an academic debate, and there's certainly room for that in editorial board meetings and the ivory towers of universities ... I'll leave that up to academia."
To underscore that point, here's Senator Ball as a pantsless Superman.
Senator Greg Ball (an elected representative serving in the law-making body of the United States government) would rather leave all the thinking and lip-wiggling to the eggheads. He came here to kick ass:
"I'm talking about Greg Ball. If personally put in a room with anybody from the most current scumbags to Osama bin Laden, I'm telling you what I would do. As far as policy of the United States, you gotta take it up with your man."
So in summation, Greg Ball wants you to know that he would rather torture a United States citizen with his own hands than discuss the moral or constitutional implications of it for even one second. And he gets to make laws for the whole country.
