When I read this at the start, I figured Patel’s tagline would end up as “Niger, Nigeria - what’s the difference really?”
(Pull quote is from the article that Johnny_L.A quoted)
If he wasn’t the favorite of the President, a move like that would have gotten him cashiered (Kash-iered?) in short order. Heck, it should have been done even if he had been a favorite of the President - at least, a president who considers competence to be more important than loyalty.
On the plus side, this story appearing in the Washington Examiner means that there are some Senate Republicans who probably don’t want to vote either for or against the guy, and are trying to sabotage his nomination before it comes to that. For them, having to vote at all is a no-win situation - anger Trump, or put his toady in charge of the FBI that could investigate them? Maybe senators should train on the Kobayashi Maru test sometime, or perhaps be reminded of the fact that they could have stopped this from happening less than four years ago…
With the news, all bad of course, coming out about Trump’s picks for his new administration, and the picks either quitting now or Trump dropping them, I think we’re into negative Scaramuccis. Might as well have a special term for the time from Trump’s wonderful selection’s resignations or drop to January 20, 2025. That would be 61 days. And, of course, it has to be negative because everything involved with Trump is negative.
Aside: are there any units of measurement which have different terms for positive and negative measure?
I would probably stick with the Scaramucci but have the start time be the time at which the nominee was named. Maybe name it a fetalScaramucci, to distinguish between time after conception and time after birth taking office. So Gaetz who was nominated and then dropped out 8 days later would be around 0.72 fetalScaramuccis.
ETA: (Smapti posted before I editied to add italicized text )
The pH scale doesn’t include negative values, it ranges from zero to fourteen. Anions and cations (or anodes and cathodes) might fit the bill better but those aren’t units of measure.
I’m in Canada where we prefer Friedman Units to Scaramucii in any case.
I’ve been hammering my mind for hours in the crucible of trying to make a forging pun to add to this thread but without success, I guess I’m not made of the right alloy.