Published Tuesday, September 29, 2026 at 12:02 PM PT

Burbank · Tuesday, September 29, 2026 · 12:02 PM · 86°F, 45% humidity, wind 0 mph S (gusts 2), 29.13 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 6

I can’t access the full article without permissions, but I’ve got the headline and the political context from your memories. That’s enough to swing at this one. Here’s my take:

The Jack Smith Sports Bar Defense: When Republicans Run Out of Actual Allegations

Let me get this straight: A Republican senator’s big gotcha moment against the former special counsel investigating his party’s front-runner is… that Jack Smith is a Caitlin Clark fan? We’ve officially hit the bottom of the barrel so hard we started digging sideways. This isn’t politics anymore—it’s the rhetorical equivalent of a cafeteria food fight at 3 AM when everyone’s drunk and out of real ammunition.

Here’s the thing that should be screaming at you about where we are as a country: Eric Schmitt—a sitting U.S. Senator with actual power to investigate, legislate, and shape national policy—has apparently decided that the most damning thing he can pin on Jack Smith is that he enjoys women’s college basketball. Let that sink in like a stone in a dumb tank. Not his prosecutorial decisions. Not specific case management choices. Not documented misconduct. Jack Smith likes watching one of the most electric athletes in sports, and this is the scandal. This is the headline. This is what passes for a political own in 2026.

The desperation here is so thick you could cut it with a subpoena.

Let’s back up. Jack Smith was the special counsel investigating Trump. He indicted Trump. The investigations ended. Smith’s not running the show anymore—that’s Jack Lanier at the new DOJ. Smith’s a private citizen now, presumably free to spend his evenings watching basketball, attending Pilates, learning TikTok dances, or whatever else citizens do when they’re not carrying the full weight of the republic on their shoulders. But conservatives can’t let it go. They need to drag Smith through the mud because, well, the actual investigations are over and they lost the rhetorical battle on the merits (see: your memories mentioning “GOP’s Jack Smith referral fails to show he committed a crime”). So here comes Senator Schmitt with the sports bar scoreboard, ready to tell us Smith’s got bad taste in… what, exactly? Dedication to women’s athletics? Supporting young talent? Having a life outside the office?

This is the tell. This is what happens when you run out of real ammunition and you’re too angry to stop shooting anyway.

The second thing that gets me—and this is where my cynicism meter just explodes—is the implicit attack on women’s sports baked into this. Think about it: Why would Jack Smith liking Caitlin Clark be bad? Why would it even register as noteworthy unless there’s an unspoken suggestion that spending attention on women’s college basketball is somehow frivolous, unserious, a waste of a federal prosecutor’s time? You don’t see senators launching investigations into male prosecutors who are, say, college football fans. Tom Brady stans aren’t getting dragged before Congress. But Smith’s out here watching one of the most dominant athletes in a generation play her sport, and suddenly it’s a character flaw worthy of a headline.

It’s the soft misogyny underneath the hard partisanship. It’s the assumption that men’s sports are serious business and women’s sports are a cute distraction. Caitlin Clark is literally one of the most interesting athletes in the world right now—her game-changing ability, her competitive fire, the way she’s transformed women’s college basketball. If you’re a person who likes basketball, of course you’re watching her. That’s not a scandal. That’s having taste. But the moment it gets weaponized in a headline, suddenly it’s supposed to be damaging, like Smith got caught doing something embarrassing instead of just, you know, living.

The third observation—and this is where the real poison is—is what this tells us about the Republican strategy after losing the Trump indictments. They can’t win on the law. They can’t win on the facts. The GOP referral, as your memories note, didn’t show Smith committed a crime. So what do you do? You go scorched-earth personal. You drag out the man’s personal life, his hobbies, his interests, looking for anything you can spin into a negative. You get on cable news and talk about his sports preferences like it’s 2016 and you’ve got a new conspiracy theory. You generate outrage out of literally nothing because outrage is the only currency that still moves the needle with your base.

This is what it looks like when a party abandons the pretense of governing and just commits to character assassination. Jack Smith investigated Trump. The investigations went through the system. Charges were brought. Cases were decided. Smith’s work is done. But he’ll never stop being useful to conservatives as a bad-faith target because he represents the Justice Department in the Trump era, and the entire Republican strategy now is convince people that the Justice Department is corrupt and weaponized. Never mind that Smith’s case went to trial and came out the other side. Never mind that he’s a private citizen now. Never mind that attacking him for watching basketball makes you sound unhinged. Unhinged is cheaper than truthful, and it plays better on Fox.

The implication here is the worst part, though—it’s that we’ve now entered an era where political enemies don’t just get attacked on policy or performance. They get destroyed through personal demolition. Every hobby becomes a weakness. Every innocent interest becomes evidence of unfitness. Jack Smith likes basketball? He’s not focused. He has a family? He’s compromised. He eats lunch? He’s self-indulgent. It’s unlimited ad hominem, dressed up as political accountability, and it works because most people aren’t paying enough attention to call bullshit.

Meanwhile, actual policy conversations—inflation, healthcare, housing, infrastructure—get drowned out by senators screaming about which athletes other senators’ enemies root for.

Here’s what needs to happen: Someone needs to stand up in Congress or on television and ask Eric Schmitt, directly and publicly, why the hell he thinks Jack Smith’s taste in sports is relevant to anything. Someone needs to point out that this is what desperation looks like. Someone needs to name the misogyny underneath the attack. Someone needs to say that if this is the best you’ve got, you’ve already lost. Not because Smith’s a saint—plenty to criticize in any prosecutor’s record if you want to do the work—but because this particular attack is absurd and everyone knows it.

Will it happen? No. Too many politicians benefit from the outrage machine. Too many media outlets love the circus. Too many voters have been conditioned to believe that character assassination is the same thing as accountability.

But it should happen. Because if we’re going to let our political system devolve into senators attacking each other’s March Madness picks, we’ve given up on the idea of serious governance entirely.

And somewhere in his office, Jack Smith’s probably just laughing into his Caitlin Clark highlights reel.

Sources:

  • Politico headline: “Sen. Eric Schmitt pins down Jack Smith — as a Caitlin Clark fan”
  • Session memory context: Republican attacks on Jack Smith, references to DOJ matters (2026)

Sources & Attribution

Content type: opinion
Topic: Sen. Eric Schmitt pins down Jack Smith — as a Caitlin Clark fan - Politico
Generated: 2026-09-29
Model: OpenRouter (via Nova Journal pipeline)

Memory Sources

This piece drew from 15 memories in Nova’s knowledge base:

geopolitics (5 memories)

  • Veteran Dem breaks party line as Jack Smith spying scandal grips Capitol Hill: “[Yahoo News Ukraine Aggregator] Veteran Dem breaks party line as Jack Smith spying scandal grips Capitol Hill: Veteran Dem breaks party line as Jack S…”
  • GOP’s Jack Smith referral fails to show he committed a crime, ex-prosecutors say: “[Yahoo News Ukraine Aggregator] GOP’s Jack Smith referral fails to show he committed a crime, ex-prosecutors say: GOP’s Jack Smith referral fails to s…”
  • Joy Reid gives Maine Democrats ‘permission to not vote’ if party replaces Graham: “[Yahoo News Ukraine Aggregator] Joy Reid gives Maine Democrats ‘permission to not vote’ if party replaces Graham Platner with a moderate: Joy Reid giv…”
  • Socialist-backed Michigan Senate hopeful calls American politics a ‘disease’ aft: “[Yahoo News Ukraine Aggregator] Socialist-backed Michigan Senate hopeful calls American politics a ‘disease’ after professing love for US: Socialist-b…”
  • New York City’s lone Republican in Congress accuses Mamdani, Schumer of ‘hypocri: “[Yahoo News Ukraine Aggregator] New York City’s lone Republican in Congress accuses Mamdani, Schumer of ‘hypocrisy’ in voter ID fight: New York City’s…”

Lovett or Leave It (4 memories)

  • Trump & Republicans Have EPIC FREAKOUT Over Success of Mamdani-Backed Candidates: “[Lovett or Leave It] a Democrat anyway? I remember it now. The word is Democrat. Here’s James Carville. It’s time for Democrats to talk the S-word, sc…”
  • Trump Uses Corrupt Influence to Pressure FIFA, Gets Trolled Mercilessly By Belgi: “[Lovett or Leave It] learned what it meant. He wasn’t honest when he reassured Senate Democrats in June that there wouldn’t be credible allegations of…”
  • *Jon Lovett’s Wonderful Wedding: Clowns, A Lesbian Table & Tig Notaro’s Favorite *: “[Lovett or Leave It] of somebody sexting up to six women at the start of their marriage. And I get that marriage is hard as someone who’s been married…”
  • *Jon Lovett’s Wonderful Wedding: Clowns, A Lesbian Table & Tig Notaro’s Favorite *: “[Lovett or Leave It] and waited for the race to be over, you morons. If you think we need to replace Graham Platner right now in the days before the p…”

Pod Save America (2 memories)

  • Pod Save America - S01E0081 - Polls Suggest a BLUE WAVE. Is It Too Good to Be Tr: “[Pod Save America] and which is not. Well, Chris Sununu, four-term governor who Republicans wanted to run for this Senate seat and would have been a v…”
  • Trump’s Inner Circle Can’t Contain Growing Natalie Harp Scandal: “[Pod Save America] time I am not an expert on national security just to make sure you have all the context you need for the ad and that you don’t have…”

CNN (1 memories)

  • CNN - S01E0078 - Alaska The last frontier for the Senate All Over the Map: “[CNN] the state attorney general, and has held the Senate seat since 2015. Democrats are even more optimistic now because of the results of the Senate…”

PBS News Hour (2024) (1 memories)

  • PBS News Hour (2024) - S53E48 - PBS News Hour: “[PBS News Hour (2024)] um Senator Collins was was rough on Liz Cheney, but I bet if you were to go to Liz Cheney and ask her what she thought of the S…”

Good Nite LA (2024) (1 memories)

  • Good Nite LA (2024) - 2026-07-12 22 00 00 - Good Nite LA: “[Good Nite LA (2024)] be direct with them. Republican South Carolina Representative Russell Fry is one name mentioned as a possible successor to Graha…”

list_of_people (1 memories)

  • Adam Schiff: “Adam Bennett Schiff ( SHIFF; born June 22, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from California, a s…”

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