Kushner Does Seinfeld

Just because it looks like collusion, sounds like collusion, stinks like collusion doesn't necessarily mean it's collusion. At the very worst, as Jared Kushner laboriously intoned in a bland prepared statement, his meet-up with two or eight or ten Russians was standard canoodling procedure.

 Since no actual quid pro quo has been established, it was simply a variation of the misunderstood Seinfeldian nose pick.

In case you're not a fan of that other hit TV show about narcissism and nothing, that was the episode where Jerry's girlfriend thinks she sees him picking his schnoz at a traffic stop. He insists that he was only scratching the side of his nose and not actually digging for gold. Can a person not twiddle? "I did not pick. There was no pick.  I did not pick!" Seinfeld insists. "It was clearly on the outer edge of the nostril!"

"I did not collude. I did not collude!" Jared insists. (He's way too bland, boring, and well-bred to perform an actual indignant snort.) "All of my actions were proper in the normal course of events in a very unusual campaign.

If innocent nose-scratching can be mistaken for gross picking, so too can mere proximity to shady characters be misconstrued as something shady. Outer-edge schmoozing in the process of digging for Hillary dirt is perfectly normal when one is embroiled in such a rarity as an oligarchic carnival barker having the chutzpah to run for national elected office. It was only side-digging, folks! Appearances happen. So if you see anything untoward, you obviously need an eye exam as much as Jerry Seinfeld's accusers do.

(And if you, like me, thought you heard Kushner say in the above clip that he likes to work on imported matters rather than on important matters, then he'd probably tell you that you need a hearing aid as well as glasses.) 

Just as Jerry denies that he was seeking a bodily channel for his wayward finger, Jared scoffs at the notion that he'd ever use a back (ugh) channel for his own wayward habits and acquisitions. As a matter of fact, he drawls, he was so bored by the whole meeting that he couldn't even find his own way out of the hole he'd dug for himself. He's had people to clean up after him his whole life. Therefore, he admitted, he had to frantically email an underling to come up with an excuse for him to leave.

 What a clever, stand-up guy.

Since Jerry Seinfeld never takes questions from the audience during his stand-up routine, Jared Kushner followed suit and left the stage immediately upon completing Monday's deadpan performance before the Washington press corps. If you think he bombed, it's your fault. All that your lack of appreciation does is "ridicule those who voted for him." He was talking about his father-in-law, of course, not about his own prissy unelected and unqualified self.

What a snotty little prince.

And not to nitpick or anything, but it turns out that White House adviser Steve Bannon happens to own a stake in Seinfeld reruns. Since Bannon and Kushner don't get along, though, I doubt if there was any collusion in Jared's shameless appropriation of Seinfeld's self-protective dialogue.

As Jason Alexander, who played Jerry's sidekick George Costanzo, observed: "So Steve Brannon makes residuals on SEINFELD. I know there's a joke there somewhere but right now I only find it sad."