There is no doubt that JD Vance is one of the smuggest, smarmiest politicians in modern American history. And that is saying a great deal, given that politics attracts the smug and smarmy like moths to a flame. It is saying even more when you acknowledge that we live in a true golden age of smugsmarm, lit by that flame to the unctuous, insincere, condescending and insufferable, Donald J. Trump.

Consider how many prime examples of smugsmarm we have to choose from: Scott Bessent. Karoline Leavitt. Mike Johnson. Greg Abbott. Ron DeSantis. Pete Hegseth. Matt Gaetz. The Huckabee family. Vivek Ramaswamy. Most Fox News hosts. Many Fox News guests. Pam Bondi. Kristi Noem. Melania. Jared. Ivanka. Don, Jr. Eric.

But among all these, there is something about JD that is especially odious. It could be that he condescends to everyone. It could be that he has made a career of transparent insincerity. It could be that he is a protege of evil oligarch Peter Thiel. It could be the feeling he communicates every time he opens his mouth. It could be the most punchable nose in the long history of punchable noses. It could be his beard.

All of which are good reasons to celebrate the fact that, in the short but incredibly undistinguished political career of this shapeshifting tool of GOP puppet masters, this past week is certainly the worst he has ever had.

That is, of course, setting the bar pretty low, since he did virtually nothing as a senator except switch positions on critical issues—like what he thought about Donald Trump; he has done even less as Vice President except to ensure that people think twice about letting anything happen to Trump.

Prior to this past week, JD.s greatest hits as VP were seeking to embrace Charlie Kirk’s widow a little too hard, working to embrace white supremacist Christian nationalism (also too hard… way too hard), turning off all of Europe with a super irritating lecture at the Munich Security Conference, and doing everything he could to position himself to succeed Trump in 2028 (if not sooner).

Which is to say, he has not done much.

But this week, Trump gave JD the two most significant assignments of his time in office. First, he was dispatched to Hungary to support Viktor Orban, the man at the head of the MAGA-Putin ticket for re-election as the country’s Prime Minister. Then, he was sent off to lead the U.S. negotiating team seeking an end to the war in Iran.

For Trump and the GOP, these were both vitally important.

In the case of Orban, who had served 16 years as the head of Hungary’s government, there is no world leader other than Putin to whom the U.S. president and the U.S. Republican Party have attached themselves more closely. Orban was invited to CPAC........

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