The Weasel of Oz

In other words, the players must make their pain more palatable by removing it from public consideration, to hide their light under a bush, to “eat in the kitchen when company comes,” as Langston Hughes wrote in his 1926 poem best known by its first line: “I, too, sing America.”

But Trump wasn’t satisfied to simply accept the win. He sought to milk the manipulation even more, suggesting to Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends” that protesting players may even need to be deported. As Trump put it:“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there — maybe they shouldn’t be in the country.”

.. Last week, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl recalled an exchange she had with Trump in 2016 in which she pressed him on why he repeatedly insults journalists. His response, according to Stahl, was: “You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”

.. On Saturday, Trump falsely claimed on Twitter:
“The Failing @nytimes quotes ‘a senior White House official,’ who doesn’t exist, as saying ‘even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed.’ WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.”

Well, it turns out that the official not only exists, but audio surfaced of him giving the briefing in the White House itself.

.. Trump has not apologized for that lie or corrected it, and the tweet is still available on Twitter.

This is the strategy: Never apologize. Just move on, create a new moment — one that rivals or even outshines the last — and change the subject. This way, you keep your detractors playing on your court and by your rules and you never play on theirs.