The Luggage Whisperer

They/them/theirs about other people's suitcases

If you read the New York Times, you probably don’t know who Sam Brinton is. If you watch Fox News, you no doubt have seen photos of Brinton sporting his shaved head, facial hair and wearing a dress.

Until Monday night, Brinton was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition at the Biden Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy.

Brinton recently made news as he has been charged with stealing other people’s luggage at airport carousels. Twice.

Monday evening, Brinton stopped working for the DOE.*

My question: What ever prompted the Department of Energy to hire this individual before being caught red-handed clutching other people’s roller handles?

(CNN just reported that the Biden administration says that Brinton was not a Biden appointee, as I had written in an earlier version of this post.)*

I believe that qualified professionals should not have to pass ideological litmus tests to get a government job. But you take one look at Brinton, and you see one big, sad, messy cry for help.

That anyone in the Department of Energy thought this hire could end well says something about how out of touch some Biden aides must be.

Big media don’t see a story here. It’s a big-news outrage if Elon Musk tweets that his pronouns are “prosecute/Fauci.” (Brinton’s pronouns, be it noted, are “they, them, theirs.”) Yet when someone as clueless as Brinton is charged with felony theft, crickets.

I just looked at the Drudge Report. There was no mention of Brinton getting canned, which is a real story, but there is a link to this piece, “Roger Stone Says There’s a ‘Demonic Portal’ Above the Biden White House That the Media Refuses to Cover.”

I want to be respectful. I am sympathetic about the hard road which transgender Americans must navigate and the bullying they endured as children. Brinton, however, clearly is not trying to just fit in or transition to the other gender. Brinton is “gender fluid.”

They/them/theirs.

Almost overnight Americans who identify as non-binary have turned their individual selves into plurals. Newspaper style books adopted that lexicon even though using a plural pronoun for a single individual makes stories harder to comprehend.

Brinton has impressive professional credentials. As the bio reveals, Brinton has dual graduate degrees in nuclear science and engineering from MIT. So there’s no doubt that Brinton is qualified on paper.

But credentials don’t trump lack of judgment.

Viktor Bout, the notorious Russian arms dealer released from prison by President Joe Biden to facilitate an exchange with WNBA star Brittney Griner, recently scoffed at America as a country where first graders are taught there are 72 genders – an example, he said, of how the West is committing cultural suicide.

Visegrád 24 @visegrad24

The Russian "Merchant of Death", convicted terrorist and international arms dealer, Viktor Bout, has been interviewed on Russian TV. He says that America is rotting from the inside, saying that he was astounded when he was told that there are 72 genders.

No argument. We should have sympathy for individuals who feel trapped inside the wrong gender, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t 72 genders.

*Updates to correct the record to this post are in italics.

Debra J. Saunders is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.