Appearing Sunday on Trump TV, Louisiana's refugee from Hee Haw, Sen. John "Cornpone" Kennedy, peddled the lie spread by Russian intelligence services that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections. When corrected by host Chris Wallace that the U.S. intelligence community identified only Russia as the country responsible for hacking the DNC, Cornpone lamely offered "It could also be Ukraine." He did his duty to Trumpland (and the Kremlin), but the blowback over his lie was fierce.
Thus, the following day, this time appearing on CNN and knowing the viewership was different, Cornpone attempted to walk back his Russian-manufactured assertion that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 elections....a little. Claiming he "misheard" Wallace's question, Cornpone admitted that it was the Russians who had hacked the DNC. The Beltway media loves a temporarily reformed liar.
Cornpone's attracted to cable TV cameras, and has fashioned a good ol' boy, plain speaking personna complete with a thick Southern accent and armed with their sayings and witticisms. In reality, Cornpone seems as fake as his cult leader in the Oval Office. He's a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia (J.D.), and Oxford University. We bet that he didn't talk like Gomer Pyle when he was in those schools. He's also shown elasticity in his politics: he was a Democrat up until 2007, then he flipped to the Rethugs when the political winds shifted in Louisiana. So when Cornpone pops up on cable TV the next time, remember that you're watching an act, pure entertainment geared to whatever audience he thinks he's reaching.
(photo: Andrew Harnik//AP)
