This Isn't Good Journalism or Good Politics

 

On last night's exclusive ABC interview with the president of the United States, we saw a very confused man ask a question, lose track of the answer, then ask that same question moments later as if he didn't ask it at all. Many, many times. (See how this works?)

I'm talking about George Stephanopoulos, of course, who sounded like he trying to take the car keys away from Daddy while Pops was trying to win the Indianapolis 500.  I don't know what it did for ABC's ratings, but I know what it did for my opinion of journalism today.  That's right--my priors were reinforced. And if you thought Biden was an old man in denial about the approach of time, you probably came away the same way, and if you thought he was doing a good job as president and to leave him the hell alone about one debate, you probably didn't see anything that worried you--

Except for the fact that this wasn't journalism. It was a staged event with false stakes imposed on it--every bit as much a media presentation as a softball interview. It didn't have to be "adversarial" in tone to keep the question of whether the Reaper was playing keepsies with the Commander in Chief's marbles. If Biden sounded confident, he was too confident. If he sounded dismissive.... etc. 

But how you deny you've lost it without sounding in denial? (A-hah! A "Non-denial denial"!) How do you dismiss the results of a debate vs. the results of a strong legislative agenda? (The time for dismissing the debate and pointing to the scoreboard was probably before the debate, but then we would have had chin-stroking about "Why is Biden avoiding a debate?" Bad faith is bottomless when the floor is shame, and people stop having any.) 

The Royal Comms Were Broken

 

A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales pic.twitter.com/5LQT1qGarK

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 22, 2024

I wish Kate Middleton and her family all the best in her health journey, but just looking back at what I was asking earlier this week, we have an answer, and it's really kind of sad--this young mother, whose father-in-law also recently received a cancer diagnosis, basically endured months of intimate and sordid speculation about her health and family life while she was managing her own health, and it was as if she was supposed to handle her own messaging expertly and basically was thrown under the bus by The Firm. 

It is entirely understandable that she wanted to keep some part of this private while she tried to prepare and educate her children about what was going on--they lost their great-grandparents recently and "cancer" can be a terrifying word. But were they spared speculation about their mum's life span only to possibly be exposed to speculation about their parents' marriage? That doesn't seem fair to them.

Is the Royal Family's Comms Broken?

 

#KateMiddleton seemed to be in good spirits while out and about with #PrinceWilliam Saturday. https://t.co/kLUsfvt3b2 (🎥: TMZ/The Sun) pic.twitter.com/EqbtVojBcw

— TMZ (@TMZ) March 18, 2024

I am not a celebrity follower in general and in my world, this is what the Royal Family is to me--like, reality stars and not people who actually influence things. That said, something is very really broken here--because my social media is blowing up with "fake, fake, fakity, fake" regarding every attempt the Windsors are making at pretending all is well.

 Now, doing protocol or press is not my forte, but the Royal Fam could have just issued a statement like, a few weeks ago, that said "The Princess of Wales is still recuperating from her surgery and is unavailable for press and other events, but she appreciates the affection and well wishes she has received and looks forward to greeting with the public again as soon as she is able. In the meanwhile, please respect her privacy as she works towards her recovery."

Nonspecific but optimistic. No time frames. Appreciative but setting boundaries.

The Trump White House handled Melania's kidneys ever so much better, and they were a clusterfuck. What the whole entire hell? 

This weirdness is what makes it feel like, somewhere, someone is shitting the bed. If there's something badly amiss that can't be said--say nothing. Do nothing. Do not fake things are okay It's worse, so much worse for people to feel lied to than for them to just hear a permissible silence. Discretion--not deception. 

Here's What You Don't Do

 

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.” - @WHCommsDir

A deep dive on Biden’s response to Roe w/ @AshleyRParker + @yabutaleb7 https://t.co/7Bs9KIRo1x

— Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) July 9, 2022

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign,” she said. 

While many exasperated Democrats and activists argue the administration could do much more, others say they understand the White House view that its options are limited and that most major steps would need to come from Congress or the states.

 Emphasis mine. Points to Bedingfield for expressing that the Biden Administration wants to do what is useful and necessary and means to help pregnant people who are in jeopardy of losing their rights right now, but how in the hell do you detract from the activists who have been in the trenches doing the work? 

Here's what you don't do--detract from the people you should want to be your biggest supporters. Bag on the indefatigable and beleaguered people who put your guy in office. I am dead serious. I completely understand the straddle that the Biden Administration comms is trying to make, and it is not worth splitting your pants over. More people approve of the protection of pregnant people and the right to bodily autonomy we had under Roe than currently approve of the SCOTUS, Congress, or even the White House. Why not embrace it? Instead of being the champion of the worst case scenario (the ten year old who had to leave her state), why not champion the basic right itself? As is. As needed and wanted by the many people who experience pregnancies, and should not have to beg, explain, or wheedle for their lives. 

Trump Can't Handle the Truth

Former President Trump is pushing Republicans to keep up his false election fraud claims, even as some want to move on.

In an NPR interview, Trump shifts his arguments in real time as @nprinskeep confronts him with proof he lost. Listen now. (🧵)https://t.co/17T6VF2Y7x

— Morning Edition (@MorningEdition) January 12, 2022

There's definitely more than a little air of "So what else is new?" going on with my post title: of course he lives in a narcissistic delusion of "so much winning." But it isn't just his ego that can't handle it--it's the fear that he might lose his tribe if they see the huge holes in his story. He wasn't a winner. There was not rigged election. There was a free and fair election, and he and his team were the thieves and liars. 

Only ego made him put his neck out there in an NPR interview, and he didn't make it 15 minutes before coming apart like an Alka Seltzer in a glass of water.  Of course, his big deplorable fans still believe in him; hell, they think the mean old mainstream media is out to get him anyway, so they won't even click a link. 

But it remains true: the big lie is big, but it's just a lie. A fraud, even.

TWGB: Trump Reads Marks and Angles

 

I keep saying Trump is basically a con-artist because his mode is definitely not that of a legitimate business man. He's business as performance art. The hair! The tan! The offensively not tailored suits! The third world dictator gilded glitz of his Trump Tower penthouse, and the marble and tile of his Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago. His rallies that cheer all his weird pronouncements, even his peculiar idea of dancing (and Ellen should sue, also she is a better dancer). 

It's a con. Things that give him some kind of brand and play up his schtick are a con. Trump University was a con.  Trump's supposed charitable foundation was a big con. The wall was a con. His business model is a con. This is a con--and Trump knows it. 

But cons sometimes work, kids. Don't forget that. And if you get away with a con once, what really stops you from trying it again? Conscience? Morality? Of course not! This is TrumpWorld. So, if "But her emails..." worked once (they weren't even her emails, but Podesta's, for crying out loud!) then why wouldn't "But Hunter Biden's emails..." do the same job? 

(Not that Team Trump has given up on Hillary Clinton's emails even still. At this point, they have to be considered some kind of completists.)

John Kelly Misunderstands Trump

John Kelly says he warned Trump before he left: “Whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.” https://t.co/QNCtU65ZOB

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 26, 2019

They do say the saddest words are "might have been", but I think this bit from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is also pretty pity-worthy:

"That was almost 11 months ago, and I have a lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving," Kelly said. "It pains me to see what's going on because I believe if I was still there o someone like me was there, he would not be, kind of, all over the place."

The sad thing about that is that Kelly seems to be holding himself responsible, or believes that other people ought to be responsible, for reigning in Trump's worst impulses. It's a fallacy that Trump does not fail, but is being failed at every turn, that, as former NJ Governor Chris Christie has put it, Trump has been "ill-served" by the people around him. Trump promised that his government would be staffed with "the best people", and yet, we've seen an extraordinary turnover in staff in just one term, and Trump often indicates afterward that these were not, in fact, the best people.

At the end of the day, can't anyone just admit Trump's biggest problem is Trump? That a man we're going to entrust with the highest executive office should not need fucking baby-sitters? It isn't Kelly's fault, or even Mulvaney's fault that Trump is in the position he is. It isn't even the fault of the thousands of people who blew smoke up Trump's ass over the years and made him think he's the Pope.

Trump is Trump's problem. He's a grown man who can't hear the word "no", who needs happy news about himself to keep his mood elevated, and demanded the subscriptions of certain newspapers for federal agencies be cancelled.

How would Trump even know a person was a "yes" man? Wouldn't a person who always agreed with him just simply be "right"? Bear witness to what Trump considers the real story:

And the White House @PressSec Stephanie Grisham responded to former chief of staff John Kelly with a blistering comment. “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”

— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) October 26, 2019

"The genius of our great President." The "stable genius"? That statement from Grisham might as well have been dictated by the Dictator himself.

No. Trump would never have taken such advice as Kelly wanted to give about staying out of trouble and avoiding impeachment. A person whose cabinet meetings consist of his advisors praising him isn't looking for this kind of advice. If Kelly didn't leave under his own steam, he'd have been forced out, and someone like "cool step-dad" Mick Mulvaney would have always been ready to step in. Trump is not a toddler, but is habitually treated like one, even unto the latest item of fixing policy in Syria to "guarding the oil" because it met up with Trump's ill-formed obsessions.

Even Lassie would have let this dotard stay down in the well (like a dog!). Trump doesn't need saving. We need saving from him.

Can't Say I'll Miss Her

It will be very hard to miss Sarah Sanders' White House press briefings, because towards the end of her tenure, she hardly bothered with them, but could it safely be said that I wouldn't miss Sarah Huckabee Sanders, herself?

Yes. Gosh, yes. 

I never jumped on Sanders with both feet the way I did with Sean Spicer, I guess because by the time she was WH Press Secretary, the constant untruth was just an accepted part of TrumpWorld. It wasn't that she lied any less or was any less of a bully from the podium. If anything, she was more disdainful of the press, showing in her interactions with them an attitude along the lines of "I went to the trouble of serving you up this steaming plate of lie, now shut up and chew."

But what would have been the point of sounding off on a person doing a job she seemed to hate? She admitted it was the "opportunity of a lifetime" and claimed to "love every minute of it", but it was also an opportunity to be frequently called a liar and be more offended by being called on it than by actually doing it. It was the opportunity to have to act out an adversarial role with the WH press corps for the benefit of one particular audience member, even that wasn't always the reality of the relationship. 

Also, if it was such a great gig, what's the rush? Some people might wonder if her effectiveness as a spokesperson for the President has been diminished after having been exposed as an admitted liar in the Mueller report. But that surely isn't it, as she seems to be leaving on her own terms (although someone like myself might notice the comment made by Chris Christie that Trump had been ill-served by whoever in his press office allowed the Laura Ingraham interview that made him look bad). Also, she apparently had been meaning to leave for the past year. 

So who knows what lies in store for Sarah Sanders? Eating safely in restaurants again? Running for office?  Screwing around listlesssly and then getting a spot on Trump's 2020 campaign?

Meh. We'll see.

The Transparent President

One of the (several) conceits of the Trump Administration is that he is the most transparent president ever. I mean, he won't show his taxes, and he tries to keep White House visitor logs secret. He would very much like to crow that he is a very transparent president while not complying with subpoenas and asking his cabinet to do the same. 

So, I guess what you might say is Trump is very transparent....about the things he would prefer you don't see. You can always tell where you stand with Trump by the specific things he would actually directly tell you he prefers to remain hidden. 

And he actually does come right out and say things he would rather you believe at times, like just a bit ago, when he mentioned a thing in the Mueller report about former White House Counsel Don McGahn.

So, Trump is trying to make it very clear that Mueller was NOT fired despite being surrounded by Angry Democrats (of whatever ever-changing number they may happen to be) and he explicitly denies first of all telling McGahn to fire Mueller, because he could have (could he?) done it himself.

Because the actual problem is if he did so 1) McGahn didn't do it, which means it is not true that Trump is always obeyed and 2) If McGahn didn't do it, but was told to, and then was told to pretend he hadn't, we've got a bit of subornation of perjury to talk about.

In other words, Trump is trying to use Twitter to make a kind of legal case for himself and to prop up his glum ego--it is sad to be president and know people steal letters off your desk or pretend they will do things you ask them to, but actually won't because they can wait until your mood is better and hope you forgot.

It's probably not exactly true that Trump is a transparent president, but it is pretty much the truth to say you can see through him. He exposes himself like a series of selfies, or a parted trench coat.

But why particularly focus on Twitter on McGahn, when the thrust of the Barr-created narrative should have been that he did not obstruct, but here he is, Tweeting about one of the more egregious examples of potentially suborning perjury and interfering with the investigation? Eh--transparency! You can't help knowing what he's thinking about! Could he have just not mentioned it in any format? Yes, if he wasn't this boy, right here, asking you to love him.

The downside is we can also get up close and personal with Trump's really dark side, because he doesn't hide it all that well. He really did plan to "lock her up" with respects to Hillary Clinton. In his recent interview with Sean Hannity, he went on about Page and Strzok, Clinton's emails, and continued harping on the never-verified wiretap claim. You can see his state of mind--he wants to either pretend he is being railroaded out of office whether he is subject to impeachment or even if he legitimately loses an election. He wants to be a victim like the pitiable little snowflake he is.

Is it not so unfair that as a public servant, he needs to be held up to any public scrutiny? Is he not the biggest martyr? Pity him and the rigged system that has thwarted him by....making him president, even if he is a know-nothing racist goober.

Anyway, he says he's transparent, but I can see him. I see him alright.  And so can journalists, which is why I guess he really hates the news media. So transparent--in how he prefers not to be seen.

This is Actually Not a Good Comeback

“Omarosa was fired three times on ‘The Apprentice’ and this is the fourth time we let her go,” Deputy Press Sec. Raj Shah says. pic.twitter.com/Am5wNM67UJ

— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 8, 2018

Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah referring to Omarosa Manigault-Newman's latest firing as her "fourth" is weak for a lot of reasons, and I just wanted to spend a minute breaking them down because this being said during a White House Press briefing bothers me:

1) The previous three times Manigault-Newman was fired was on a reality television show. Everybody knows those things are scripted to some extent. That isn't real life.

2) But then Shah says "the fourth time we let her go" like working at the White House is "The Apprentice Season 15: DC Follies" or some such nonsense. What in the hell does he mean by "we"?

3) If her being fired from "The Apprentice" three times meant anything, why was she hired for a White House job? She got fired three damn times from a reality tv show, and then got hired for a White House job--who did that? Who did that?

4) The Deputy Press Secretary is making this comment during a White House Press briefing because I presume Sarah Huckabee Sanders would rather vape dead skunk than answer questions about Omarosa or Rob Porter because she's human, but really--quitting outright is definitely an option, right?

5) He's also making this comment during a White House Press Briefing because a former White House staffer is now saying things about the administration on another reality tv show. Not on "Meet the Press". Not on "Face the Nation". On "Big Brother". So, the cool grown-up move after all other grown-up moves have failed would be "We don't have a comment about former staffers who are now on reality tv shows." Because this is the White House, which is real life and important stuff, and that is reality tv.

6) But this White House is a clusterfuck, so they basically just admitted they are the equivalent of a reality tv show, because why not?

President Trump and the Very Fake News

In a stunning display of failure to be self-aware, President Trump Tweeted a condemnation of "(Fake) news" in the form of CNN International while boosting the signal of an on-line conspiracy-theory mill, which probably ought to call into question whether Trump possesses any discernment at all for separating truth from lies, if one, for some peculiar reason, still had any question about this. What I don't necessarily think is a coincidence is that just recently, Russia declared that outlets (independent, not state-owned media outlets, mind you) like CNN International, should be treated as "foreign agents" in the way that the US now treats RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik, both of which have been found to have been useful in pushing the line that Trump was preferable to Clinton in the 2016 election.

But of course, Trump has had a storied issue with CNN. He has Tweeted a wrestling meme in terribly poor taste regarding CNN, and Tweeted and deleted an even more distasteful one regarding a cartoon in which a CNN reporter is killed by an oncoming train.  He has threatened CNN as a business over their coverage, and looks to be making good on that threat.

CNN's Twitter responded back,

But who knows what good that will do? Trump doesn't seem to even recognize media he himself was a part of as being real, as he has apparently intimated that he thinks the "Access Hollywood" tape that shows him stating he grabs women by the pussy had been doctored.

It is as if he views the only legitimate media as that which fluffs up his image, giving him awards and so forth, and he wants to be dismissive if not abusive towards any other kind. But he represents the US government. It's not his job to hound the media. And if he wanted them to make a better report on him, he could try doing a better job, right? (Oh right. He's Trump. He never will.) And yet Trump loves Fox News, which is basically the Trump Propaganda Network at this point.

Trump cries "fake news" because he worries the truth is getting told on him, and it isn't very favorable. But what are you going to believe, Trump's alligator mouth or his dead-canary understanding of what's going on in the bullshit mines?

What Did the President Know and Did He Know He was Doing it?

I can't get over the idea that President Trump might not even know what the hell he's doing, even if that is the jist of several articles published about him recently. But with a sad, heavy sigh, I look at the very dumb, very obvious latest: the story from the Washington Post, now corroborated by several outlets, that Trump revealed classified intelligence produced by one of our allies to the Russians at the little meet and greet that was so weird as to be notable last week.

Sure, Putin asks him to host Lavrov and Kislyak and try to keep Kislyak on the down-low, and they talk about this and that--and Trump gets around to dishing some classified intel. Well, the POTUS does enjoy the discretion to declassify intelligence if he thinks it's warranted. It's part of the toolkit. It's right up there with firing the FBI Director--a thing he can do if he wants to. A privilege of being the executive. But why that information, to the Russians, in the Oval Office...

It would be great if we could even be assured that Trump was working with the Russians on intelligence on purpose, right? If he could just be normal and say we are working together against ISIS and this is necessary and steps were taken to not fuck everything up by contacting the ally that obtained the intelligence in question to protect the source and not burn our Five Eyes relationship...

But I don't think he is capable of that mature kind of high-functioning decision-making (whether you would agree with the reasoning of my scenario, it would be on the up-and-up). The thing with Trump is, he really is out of his league in this arena and his defining personality trait is to show off. What was he doing in the "Access Hollywood" tape, really, but crudely showing off about what he gets away with when it comes to women? He showed off for Shinzo Abe at Mar-A-Lago, even if that wasn't great security protocol.  He got giddy showing his nice Russian friends that he too, gets information, and blurted out something he shouldn't--

Plausible? Well, the alternative is he knew very well what he was doing, and intentionally wrecked some of our intelligence alliances after having done not a super-great job of conveying his competence to the IC here at home. See, when some serious person like James Clapper conveys the thought that Trump has left our institutions "under assault"--this might not just mean deliberately.  He could do untold damage unknowingly, thoughtlessly, uncaringly, too. And the intent is beside the point, because the result is the same. And we can't even take serious Trump surrogates and cabinet members at their word because this administration has shown public duplicity on numerous occasions. And we are only what, not--116 days in? It feels like an eternity, rather like you might feel if you were in the backseat of a bus being driven by a toddler. Let me be uncharacteristic and say, there is a pretty good take from David Brooks (I don't say that thing, do I?) And, the idea that Trump is just an egomaniac adult baby meets with Josh Marshall's overall Trump's Razor doctrine of assuming the stupidest when it comes to him.

But all the same, whether we think Trump is actually treasonous or just too stupid to be president, he is fulfilling the warnings made about him.

He just can't be trusted.

This Trump Transcript is SO MUCH

I just want to preface this by saying that when the Trump Campaign, and especially ghouls like Rudolph Giuliani, made the insinuation that there was something very wrong with Hillary Clinton (Parkinson's? A stroke? None of which are amusing to me, having known people who have suffered those conditions and maintained great functionality--but also, it's not amusing to idly remote-diagnose people to slander them with speculative bullshit) I found this exceptionally grotesque.  Without any kind of proof positive, off-gassing some vileness about a person's health or possible disability seems both like wishful thinking--in wanting a political adversary to be in a failing condition, and like saying that a person with some level of impairment in one area can't have compensatory skills or experiences that help them to achieve despite of the barriers they have to overcome.  So I am going to very specifically try to avoid ableist or medical terms with respects to what I'm observing with respects to Trump's overall demeanor--it is enough to find that he is incurious, deceitful, and inarticulate with the assumption that he has always been to some degree so, without trying to find some organic reason why he seems so.

Leaving all that aside, the AP transcript of Trump's interview with Julie Pace is utterly fascinating. We have every reason to believe that he is ratings-obsessed and still a bit in denial over his popular vote loss, but his idea that winning the electoral vote meant he would suddenly be loved is a bit...sad. He wonders where the ersatz "100 day" metric comes from, not realizing it was from his very own boast. He repeats a lie about the F-35 program. He does, but doesn't, but does, express support for Marine Le Pen, who is horrible.  He tries to say he had hardly any knowledge of WikiLeaks when he praised them, when he knew what they were in 2010.

And so on, and so on. And although "unintelligible" usually means that whatever recording device the reporter used to keep the interview fresh failed to pick up something, it just seems a bit weird to see it printed out so many times in this interview when Trump is not a "soft-talker" for the most part. And yet, he sometimes does seem like a person who is half-assing it. Even his sobriquet for "Face the Nation": "Deface the Nation", sounds borrowed from White House guest Sarah Palin.

Sean Spicer is Bad at His Job

Sean Spicer: Hitler "was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing" https://t.co/QghoR2dnOo pic.twitter.com/5rJrnrLpoW

— CNN (@CNN) April 11, 2017

I may have pointed this out before, but Sean Spicer is not great at this job. Offensively so. But does someone really need to have cheat sheets that say things like:

Don't do comparisons with Hitler. Especially ones that start with "even Hitler didn't..."

Don't minimize the Holocaust.

Try to get the dictator of Syria's name right (he pronounced it some kind of way...).

It's embarrassing.

Pravderp 2: The Tappening

WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer outdid himself today in serving up some astonishing "pravderp" on behalf of President Trump's early Saturday-morning Twitter allegation that phones at Trump Tower were wiretapped by the Obama Administration, which somehow has turned into a congressional inquiry, and turned up...

Nada. I know--weird, right? The guy who alleged that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US, that Senator Ted Cruz's father was plotting with Lee Harvey Oswald, that there were five million illegal votes that skewed the popular vote total (somehow, mostly in California, a state where Hillary Clinton was already assured a win), and other peculiar not-proven shit, seems to have pulled this wiretapping thing out of his behind, and yet, for the sake of the credibility of the office, Spicer has to go out there and make the allegation seem not implausible--or even totally true. (Depending on Trump's mood, I guess.)

So, this leaves the beleaguered Press Sec. stating on Tuesday that he was "extremely confident" that evidence would prove the allegation true and disputing whether Trump even meant "wiretapping" of his "phones" since he used "quotation marks" and might have meant some other kind of surveillance. (Although as the above screencap from Trump's Twitter rant shows, he did mean phones, and did not always use quotation marks.)

Which brings us up to today, when, after comments from US AG Jeff Sessions that he didn't give Trump any reason to consider this story, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saw no evidence to back the wiretap claims, Senate intelligence also rejected the claim but a wee bit before Spicer was about to do a briefing regarding the budget plan.

A scramble seems to have ensued to find stories to bolster the Trump claim, again, to make it seem plausible, and not like the POTUS simply makes things up, particularly not criminal allegations against a former President.  So he read stories from the press to complain that they did not cover stories that might support Trump's claims, and which kind of did not help and sort of made it plausible that if any wiretap did exist, it was probably because legitimate illicit stuff was happening. It was a bit weird, and also right from Melissa McCarthy's SNL impersonation ("Those were your words!")

It gave me a bad feeling for Spicer for a moment, like it might have been better for his credibility if the press conference was cancelled altogether, or if he even resigned because defending this is an awful lot to ask. But somehow, claiming the determinations of both Houses of Congress as "not findings" (yeah, says I, because nothing was "found") snapped me out of it.

I began to think this had nothing to do with wiretapping claims, because by golly, even if Trump did not mean them "literally", we were taking them "seriously". And attention is attention.  In the meantime, we were introduced to Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who explained how cutting programs that fed kids and old people were really doing us all a kindness, if you could even call reducing the funding of something "a cut" at all, at all. And none of the assembled, gob-smacked journos even thought to ask about whether the Administration hired some kind of Hungarian Nazi either.

I truly detest these Trumpist people. I truly do.

It is to Laugh!

President Trump on the job report, per Sean Spicer: “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.” https://t.co/8HYuY2A7tJ

— CNN (@CNN) March 10, 2017

There is nothing funnier than the idea that we have a president who shamelessly lied to undermine the Bureau of Labor Statistics during his campaign constantly, but now feels these numbers are perfectly great.

HAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHA!

(See, the joke is that Trump was always lying, and the suckers believed him! Right? Right? Yeah, it isn't actually funny. I don't know why the press is laughing along.)

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!

I have some basic questions about what is happening with the very executive Chief Executive the USA has found itself with--how is he doing as a manager of an elite staffing arrangement that covers multiple agencies of varying disciplinary concentrations? Does he seem to be staffing these positions with an understanding of what these various Departments do, or does his placement of appointments and nominations suggest cronyism and "old boy's school" sort of handling? Is he right to complain about whether his nominees are being slow-walked to their eventual confirmation (because Democrats aren't numerous enough to block anything on their ownsome)? Or is he basically just crying in his oatmeal because he is overwhelmed about filling in positions he though were going to just fill themselves?

See, Trump has complained that his cabinet is uniquely bare because Dems are delaying confirmations. And I agree they could be trying! But I think this is in part because he isn't picking the best people, but rather, people who are awful and who generate the kind of citizen calls to their representatives that really make a difference.  But Trump also isn't filling in spots all that quickly, and sometimes, when people are in, they find themselves out because not enough vetting. I think Trump thought this would be easier than it turned out to be, and there is a term for why he thought that. It isn't charitable, but can be summed up as: the reason a lot of us (2.8 million more than voted for Trump) rejected him as POTUS--he doesn't get what the job is or how to do it.

And that goes for how to staff it, or how to manage the press other than as an adversary, or how to not look like a Russian stooge.

Trump has a team, of sorts. But his White House falls short of the teamwork building I would think a manager of his experience should be producing. If he was a Celebrity Apprentice POTUS, I'd be think about his firing right now.

I think he should be thinking about his firing too.

The Leaks are Real. The News is Fake

The press conference President Trump had Thursday might has been blogged about by yours truly as a "Trump Did Not Have A Great Day" post, but I'm not sure that's exactly how I would describe what transpired. I think a pretty good analysis of the entire presser with transcript was done by NPR, and I encourage looking at what I think is a pretty even-handed review. The presser itself took place while I was at work, so my impressions of what was said largely came through checking my Twitter feed at work whilst at lunch--and you would be quite reasonable to assume my Twitter follows lean left, and the conservatives and Republicans that I do follow lean "never Trump". My impression was that the nearly 1.5 hour event was kind of a damn mess.

I guess I still consider it a damn mess, but I recognize that for people who are pro-Trump, this is not a problem. Did he say things that weren't entirely factually true--sure, but they were "truthy" in the sense of fitting in with his worldview and specific hyperbolic style. Was he basically pissing and moaning about bad press coverage? You bet--but many people are critical of and even distrust mainstream media journalism. Also, I think because what Trump does and says is so highly different from what conventional politicians do or say, a person used to covering more traditional figures is liable to read his eccentricities as more erratic or disordered or imply that he's collapsing or self-destructing or that this one news thing is going to just disable his presidency--

It doesn't work like that, though. I think in both the liberal and conservative camps, we've gotten a little bit inured to clickbait-y titles that suggest that some figure was "destroyed" or "slayed" or "totally owned" by some event. But this never the actual case. Show me a chalk outline around a greasy spot where that individual once stood and I would call that "destroyed". "Made to look uncomfortable or even a bit emotionally aroused" is not actually "destroyed". In other words, from a liberal perspective, I am inherently distrustful of people who want to positively state that this early in a presidency, any number of off-the-wall utterances taking place can mark the end of a presidency. Especially for someone whose entire candidacy, nomination, and general election tactics were predicated on--what would I even call it? "Off-the-wall-ism"?

That said, as a critic of political communications and policy, I guess there might be any number of blogposts I could spin off of any given exchange or paragraph. I mean, seriously. Even basic things like Trump's fetish for discussing his electoral win is simply peculiar. His 304 electoral vote win was not the most significant since President Reagan. He likes saying it was "306" and seems to want to imply it was a massive landslide. It just wasn't. Or citing Rasmussen's claim that he has 55% approval--which disagrees with Pew and Gallup--but still wouldn't qualify as "through the roof" relative to being in what should be the "honeymoon phase" of his presidency. Which he isn't getting because his White House is not a "finely-tuned machine" (OMG--this was a thing he said!) but more like some good old boys making their way the only way they know how, which might be a little bit more than the law will allow.

He's obsessed with "ratings", but doesn't quite correlate the concept that popularity and effectiveness are not the same thing. And he's not yet achieved effectiveness despite his claims--shit like the botched Yemen raid and his skimpy staffing are on him, not the people reporting on him. He seems dilatory about vetting people or things. His "I can't believe it's not a Muslim ban" was not properly checked out. Leadership should include sharing responsibility for failures and taking a problem-solving approach to challenges--not complaining about them. For a person with business executive experience, he does not seem to be translating any acquired skills to government executive capacity. This is worrisome, because that is the exact flexibility his voters seemed to be counting on.

None of this Stuff is Normal

The above picture is Trump at Mar-A-Lago, where he received a call that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile. Although you could call the resort very exclusive (as in "pricey") I don't think you could actually call it "secure". As in, I don't know that it's actually ok that national security issues are mapped out in a place public enough that randos can take snaps of a curiously-composed CINC who seems cut-off from the flurry of discussion behind him-because a camera happens to be pointed in his direction.

This is fairly removed from a discussion one might have had about electronic communications occurring during the previous administration. This is not normal, and for an administration that already has engendered a fraught relationship with the intelligence community, openly flouting procedure is not going to be a good confidence-booster.

You'd think that Congress might offer some oversight--but no. Apparently, tax cuts for rich people and dismantling the social safety net have a lot more priority than complete confidence in the basic competence of the executive branch for GOP elected officials.

The result? I think Trump's basic unpopularity (although he and his supporters are loathe to admit or recognize it) could well rub off on certain House members--although 2018 seems such a long time from now. But in the short term, there may be economic indicators and other signs that all is not healthy in the US--let alone "great".  It's nonsensical when the "winner" of an election has to have his surrogates trot out in front of cameras and lie about voter fraud, and is so desperate for love he wants the press to cover his rows of supporters--when he was looking out at protesters (and somehow not noticing their "resist" signs).

There's a lot of weird going on. The only way for me to look at it is to point out: it is not normal. And the way it differs from normal is not good.

Protecting the Brand

It seems like just yesterday, then-candidate Donald Trump was offering us an opportunity to let him fix America's branding. Today, it looks an awful lot like now-President Trump is using the White House to help his (and Ivanka's) brand.

It was kind of hard not to notice that Donald Trump hasn't divested from his various holdings, and that he uses them and sort of promotes them (as does his Press Secretary) to the extent that even the Pentagon is considering renting space at Trump Tower. For convenience, of course. It might be a bit less obvious when Melania Trump's business was promoted on the White House website, although it's really hard to miss her recent lawsuit claiming damages because all the business opportunities she might have expected as First Lady were in jeopardy due to assorted scurrilous allegations. (Said opportunities were not in any jeopardy, apparently, due to possible ethical qualms.)

But Trump's Tweeted "defense" of his daughter Ivanka's brand and her "unfair" treatment by Nordstrom seems to take on a whole other level of interest. The Tweet:

I think the thing that sticks out at me is that he's implying that Nordstrom is making a kind of moral choice rather than a business one--Ivanka is great! Nordstrom is unfair! But Nordstrom has made a point of saying this isn't anything political at all--sales for Ivanka Trump merchandise simply dropped. Are they obligated to keep lines of product in stock that they can't shift? They aren't even the only business experiencing "Ivanka fatigue". (And for a switch, Trump's Tweet about Nordstrom doesn't seem to have hurt their shareholder value.) 

But that is just a father defending his daughter's brand, right? He doesn't like to see his daughter's name-value suffer. That alone would seem touching, right there--but it didn't stay right there. He re-Tweeted this comment under his @POTUS account, which is sort of an official stamp, and then the matter was taken up in a WH press briefing, with Sean Spicer baldly stating that  

"There's a targeting of her brand and it's her name," Spicer said. "She's not directly running the company. It's still her name on it. There are clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father's positions on particular policies that he's taken. This is a direct attack on his policies and her name. Her because she is being maligned because they have a problem with his policies."

She's not running the company, but she hasn't divested from it anymore than her father has from his. If her business is undermined by association with her father's policies and her support of them, this is happening at the consumer level. People are "voting with their wallets".  Free. Bloody. Marketplace.

And then it got absurd, when KellyAnne Conway literally turned a spot on Fox News into a commercial to promote Ivanka's stuff.  She's a White House Counselor. She's a trained lawyer. She had to know this was not ethical. But there just isn't any separating Donald Trump or his daughter as political entities from their business selves--not least of all because neither of them took steps to do so. So perhaps unpopular political views will hurt their business brand--I'm not entirely sure how this could have been unanticipated.

I do believe, however, that despite the current partnership with the Trump family, America's brand should endure.