Here they are, the annual arrows of the long Memorial Day weekend, reflecting conventional wisdom if not truth:
President Trump--He adequately performed the scripted stagecraft of the foreign tour and managed somehow to converse with Muslims, Jews and the world's leading Catholic without worsening the worldwide religious war.
His low bar thus hurdled, he returns to the United States to deal with the even lower bar of not getting impeached or indicted.
Oddsmakers say his chances are decent on the basis that he is more clueless than criminal.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson--The man once known for losing statewide political races at an unprecedented pace--for U.S. Senate, attorney general and governor--is now a cinch to win his second in a row.
I was touting patience to an audience of Democrats the other night and used Asa as the example. Getting drubbed all those times was worth it because governor can be a good gig, once you get the rats out of the house.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge--Arkansas voters once recoiled when its politicians embarrassed them for national audiences. Now their Trumpian devotion is so fierce that they crave the humiliation and degradation Rutledge heaps on them with her drawled nonsense as a regular Trump apologist on cable news.
She wins by saying bogus things all country-like.
Iowa U.S. Senator Tom Cotton--The Republican president after Mike Pence.
U.S. Rep. French Hill--You get the idea that a lot of Trump's defenders don't know any better but that this Bushian banker does. Surely his support of that affront to humanity that was the House health-care bill will net him an opponent serious enough to get a sufficiently dominant margin in Pulaski County to scare him into moments of introspection and moderation.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman--If you're visiting Washington, he'll give you a tour and have his picture taken with you--those being the only things the voters seem to ask of him.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack--If you're visiting Washington, he'll growl at you about how the nation is hell-bound in a hand-basket if we don't cut some dadgummed spending around here. He seems the likeliest member of the state's delegation to body-slam somebody.
He is in no danger to his re-election in Northwest Arkansas, of course. But, I must tell you, there's something starting to percolate up there with motivated Democrats, young voters, the Indivisible movement and demographic changes in and around Bentonville.
As I've explained, you can't have a world-class art museum without some liberals.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman--Who?
U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford--Does the Trump association kill him when the Trump budget proposes to hurt farmers? Or does he mitigate the hurt by standing up for farmers?
Probably the latter. It's as simple as loving the sinner--Trump--but hating the sin, meaning harm to farmers. (That the Trump budget also hurts the heavy poverty population of Crawford's district is of no political concern, of course.)
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola--Actually, I have good news for him. I talked to a progressive young Democrat the other day who was not thinking of running against him.
He's been there too long. His chronic caution has become shopworn.
That Democrats don't stand a chance anymore anywhere but in Little Rock has made the city's mayoralty a veritable plum for any locally competent and ambitious young politico.
Arkansas Supreme Court--They stop two lethal injections and then want an 11 percent raise for it? Where do they think they are, anyway--Mass-a-too-sits?
Little Rock school superintendent Michael Poore--It's a tough town, Mike. It's not personal.
State education director Johnny Key--Well, it is personal with him.
Bret Bielema--He's set for six or seven wins and a lame bowl game. He needs to recruit fewer tight ends and more people who can play defense--in the line, behind the line and in the secondary.
Razorback football--The above is apparently good enough anymore. Fans will be satisfied to beat one of the Mississippi teams every year and spend late December sitting outside in the cold at Memphis or Shreveport.
Newspapers--Two of them, anyway. The New York Times and the Washington Post are on fire with piercing scoops on this preposterous president.
Fake news, you say? The Justice Department doesn't normally appoint a special counsel to investigate news that is fake.
And sit tight for James Comey's congressional testimony.
Me--As long as haters are faithful readers ...
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 05/30/2017