What Does Kash Patel See in the Shadows of Washington
The director of the FBI has seen things I can only speculate on.
There are many pictures of Kash Patel on the internet. He is a major figure in the news: director of the FBI, a former podcaster, a loyal supporter of the president. In many of these photos, Patel looks normal, certainly by the standards of the Trump administration. There are much stranger faces, much more tortured visages, roaming the Federal buildings of Washington D.C. But look closer, and you begin to notice a trend. There is something there. Just out of frame. Kash Patel can see it.
In so, so many pictures, Kash Patel is doing a weird thing with his eyes. Perhaps they are just bad moments captured by the photographer. Wire photographers often choose images they think are visually striking, or expressive. That’s why you often see photos of Trump’s mouth contorted into strange shapes, pursed up like the opening of a drawstring bag, close ups of muscles sagging, et cetera. With Patel, it is his eyes. Why do they look like that? What does he see?
What was there, on the desk? What new information was Kash Patel confronted by? Is this all the doing of Chip Somodevilla of Getty Images? We must go further.
It is not only Chip Somodevilla! Here is Win McNamee, also capturing Kash Patel doing something weird and buggy with his eyes. Is he swallowing. Is he nervous. Is he, perhaps, seeing things that no other eyes can behold. Is Kash Patel seeing beyond the veil?
You see Stephen Miller, looking offscreen. He looks bored. Pam Bondi looks vaguely attentive. Not so Kash Patel. His eyes are haunted. He looks afraid. What is it. What does he see? Is Kash Patel privy to certain truths as a privilege of his station? What is the FBI not telling us, that would make him appear this way, in so many images, so many times?
There is a depth of emotion here. His eyes are glassy. They are vaguely bloodshot. Has he been crying? No. Surely not. But there is a well of emotion there, for reasons unbeknownst to the public? Do we not deserve to know why Kash Patel is doing a weird thing with his eyes so often?
I say that we do, but the erosion of transparency among the increasingly authoritarian regime means we may never know. Kash Patel may go down in history as just another figure in this ragged band of provocateurs that now holds the reins of power, and not specifically a Guy With Weird Eyes. But here, I say, here we at Discourse Blog must hold power to account. We must maintain the historical record. There’s something funky going on here.
And yet, we may never know. Transparency may be a thing of the past. What Kash Patel sees is a mystery. Sometimes, even his eyes: those expressive, kinda buggy, strange orbs, are shrouded to us.
Behind those lenses, anything could be happening. It is a mystery. Perhaps it is some kind of new eyeball technology. A supplement. Or a stimulant. Or simply a strange man out of his depth, forced into a series of very serious situations that he is not prepared for. This is unknowable to us, but one thing is for sure: something is going on there, and I want to know what it is.
Showing my age, but time to drag out Ballad of a Thin Man and tweak it:
"But something is happening here and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Patel?
I wonder if Kash Patel is aware that he will be the first "under the bus?"