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Tim Miller: The slap.
Chris Rock: Oh wow.
Miller: The laptop.
Floating Joe Biden head: Come on, man.
Miller: The war. The spice. This is “Not My Party” brought to you by The Bulwark. All right, y’all I had a week away from the news drinking caipirinhas on Ipanema Beach and now I’m tanned, rested, and ready to hit y’all with three takes that are Brazilian-wax-level hot.
Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin): Godddddddd!
Miller: First, we got the laptop. So the New York Times confirmed that the infamous Hunter Biden laptop was in fact real.
Allen Chamberlain (Jonathan Hyde in The Mummy): It does exist.
Jack Donaghy: I knew it.
Miller: Something anyone who actually read the reporting should have long suspected. So what does that mean? Well, there’s a personal side and a political. Well, it’s clear Hunter’s a guy who has major personal problems and you can see in the emails that despite it all, his dad has stuck by him, which makes sense coming from a guy who’s lost two kids to tragic deaths.
Joe Biden (in 2020 presidential debate): My son, like a lot of people had a drug problem. He’s fixed it and I’m proud of him.
Miller: Now the political scandals revealed by the laptop are mostly a standard case of family members trying to cash in on access. That’s pretty gross, but it’s been happening as long as there’s been delinquent family members of politicians.
Stewie Griffin: What?
Miller: The only thing that might implicate Joe Biden is one vague sentence about a deal with a Chinese company. Where there was “10 held by H for the big guy?”
Old dude: It could be anyone.
Miller: Now the details about “the big guy” should be investigated for sure, but it was written when Biden was out of office and allowed to do private business deals. The big takeaway is that the media—
Kurt Bardella: Let’s be very clear here, this is nothing but conspiracy-driven Russian propaganda.
Miller: —and big tech response to the laptop in retrospect was abominable. Twitter banning the original story from the platform because of some vague claims it might be a Russian op was a big mistake. The platforms need to be much more responsible when it comes to the censorship of news, which should be an entirely different bar than when dealing with hate speech. And Biden, come on, man. This was BS:
Biden: What he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant.
Bernie Kropp (teacher from The Incredibles): I think not!
Miller: Next we have the war. We are over a month into the war in Ukraine. The amount of destruction that Russia has wrought is unfathomable and horrific. But for all of Putin’s Wreck-it Ralph war crimes, Russia hasn’t actually achieved any of its objectives. Their armies are stalled and they’re retreating from Kyiv because brave Ukrainians are pushing them back. Putin’s plan was to march right into the capital and be—
Dick Cheney: —greeted as liberators.
Miller: But even as Russia fails everyone on the right keeps criticizing . . . Biden?
Ted Cruz: This war is the direct result of repeated mistakes made by President Biden.
Woman: Yeah, you’re gonna have to walk me through that.
Miller: The West is providing the weapons and intelligence that are powering the Ukrainian resistance. Our allies are united. More Russian soldiers have died in this war than Americans did in 20 years in Afghanistan. Sure, Biden’s team hasn’t been perfect. I don’t love that they walk back this—
Biden: For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.
Miller: —which was spot the **** on. And he hasn’t convinced Putin to off himself in a bunker yet, but all in all, Biden’s doing the job well. While the other guy keeps suckling on Vlad’s toes.
Billy Mack (Bill Nighy in Love Actually): ♪ I feel it in my toes. ♪
Miller: I obviously can’t leave you without a take on the slap.
Rock: Oh wow. . . . Greatest night in the history of television.
Miller: (1) Grown-ass men are not supposed to lay hands on other people over jokes, even if they are offensive.
Rock: Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.
Miller: (2) Will could have just negged Chris Rock’s bloated ass the next time he got the mic.
Will Smith: You gotta smile and you gotta pretend like that’s okay.
Miller: (3) The fake tough guys online talking about how Will needed to defend his woman need to be more confident in their manhood.
Smith: Love will make you do crazy things.
Miller: (4) The lefty congresspeople like Ayanna Presley and Jamaal Bowman who are trying to defend Will on some weird racial identity shit, need to chill.
And lastly, if you think the slap was the craziest Oscars moment, in 1973, John Wayne had to be held back by six security guards from attacking a woman who was just saying that the movies need to be nicer to American Indians.
Sacheen Littlefeather: Excuse me.
Miller: When it comes to dudes being hardons, well, more things change, the more they stay the same.
Frank Murphy (from F Is for Family): Such a dick.
Miller: See you next week for more “Not My Party.”
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Analysis and reporting on politics and culture in America. Home to Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Bill Kristol, JVL, Sam Stein, and more. No partisan loyalties. No tribal prejudices.