Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn.
The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.
.. He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.
.. Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.”
.. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr. Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the press, he complained: “Every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting.” They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”
.. It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me?
.. His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong, cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery. “Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he tweeted this week. Talk about projection.
.. John J. Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College writes: “Loyalty is about strength. It is about sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is costly, difficult or unpopular.” A strong man does that. A weak one would unleash his resentments and derive sadistic pleasure from their unleashing.
.. The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th century films—Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs. They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger.
..His inability—not his refusal, but his inability—to embrace the public and rhetorical role of the presidency consistently and constructively is weak... “It’s so easy to act presidential but that’s not gonna get it done,” Mr. Trump said the other night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. That is the opposite of the truth. The truth, six months in, is that he is not presidential and is not getting it done. His mad, blubbery petulance isn’t working for him but against him. If he were presidential he’d be getting it done—building momentum, gaining support. He’d be over 50%, not under 40%. He’d have health care, and more... He seemed to think this diarrheic diatribe was professional, the kind of thing the big boys do with their media bros. But he came across as just another drama queen for this warring, riven, incontinent White House. As Scaramucci spoke, the historian Joshua Zeitz observed wonderingly, on Twitter: “It’s Team of Rivals but for morons.”It is. And it stinks from the top.
Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?
Trump’s Transgender Tweet
Apparently he thinks he can run the government by himself.
Issuing a major Pentagon policy change, via Twitter , before anything resembling the details of that policy exists, as happened with the initial travel ban, is awful management. It diverts and wastes the valuable time of the Administration’s highest officials. It creates (another) political storm and inevitably lawsuits that no one has had time to prepare for. Mr. Trump keeps driving policy like he’s the only person in government—and if he keeps it up, he might be.
Candidate for DHS job withdraws because of transgender ban
A candidate for a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security withdrew from consideration on Wednesday, citing President Donald Trump’s decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
.. “As I mentioned in our conversation, I am a strong advocate for diversity, both in the Republican Party and in government,” Fluharty wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO. “The President’s announcement this morning — that he will ban all of those who identify as transgender from military service — runs counter to my deeply held beliefs, and it would be impossible for me to commit to serving the Administration knowing that I would be working against those values.”
Fluharty, who is openly gay, said he interviewed for the job on Tuesday, one day before Trump’s surprise tweet that the government “will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity” in the U.S. military.
Anthony Scaramucci Attacks Reince Priebus as Leaker and Vows to Oust Him
The internal rivalries of the White House spilled out into stark public view on Thursday as President Trump’s new communications director publicly attacked the chief of staff, calling him a “paranoid schizophrenic” leaker and vowing to get him fired.
.. Anthony Scaramucci, who was installed as White House communications director last week over the objections of the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, in the morning called into CNN to say that the two men were at odds and to dare Mr. Priebus to deny being a leaker. By the evening, The New Yorker had posted an interview quoting Mr. Scaramucci using vulgar language to describe Mr. Priebus.
.. Mr. Scaramucci suggested that he believed that Mr. Priebus was leaking information to damage him. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” he said.
.. In the same telephone call, Mr. Scaramucci disparaged Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, who also warned against hiring him as communications director. “I’m not Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.”
.. Mr. Lizza had posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday night reporting that Mr. Trump and Mr. Scaramucci were having dinner at the White House with Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and a strong supporter of the president, and Bill Shine, a former Fox executive. Mr. Scaramucci called Mr. Lizza unsolicited to demand that he identify his source.
.. When Mr. Lizza would not, Mr. Scaramucci said, “O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.”
.. But the leak he was complaining about was no leak. Lorraine Woellert, Politico’s reporter on the story, explained that she simply requested the financial disclosure form through normal channels and was provided it by a government agency as required by federal law... “When I put out a tweet and I put Reince’s name in the tweet, they’re all making the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are,” he said. “So if Reince wants to explain that he’s not a leaker, let him do that. Let me tell you something about myself. I am a straight shooter and I’ll go right to the heart of the matter.”Comments:
And, by the way, please someone find the “hot list” of upcoming distractions to be used any day there’s a real agenda setback. Yesterday’s transgender military tweet kept us all away from watching the health care debate in America sink to new lows. Find and LEAK the outrage list so we can immunize ourselves to these “bright, shiny” issues beforehand, and not take our collective eyes off the cannonball coming straight at all of us. The Trump core base is said to be seeking revenge on the nation for their marginalization, but I for one am not going to be done in by lies, innuendo and profanity, even if it oozes out of the White House or the president’s own mouth.
.. Apparently what Donald Trump thinks saved him from all of his near catastrophes in business was hiring staff who pledged their undying loyalty and never told him the truth. But what that did instead was fuel his reckless behavior, and the only thing that saved him from ruin was the safety net of bankruptcy court. So now he’s repeating the same pattern, but there’s no bankruptcy court at the end of this road, just a Special Counsel... Trump has a new friend in the White House. Someone who will spend any amount of time verbally caressing him, reflecting on Trump’s greatness and whispering sweet conspiracy in his ears.
Scaramucci and Trump are perfect together. Scaramucci will find the proof, gosh darn it, he will that the real and only problem of this Trump administration is the ‘deep state’ leakers. If The Mooch and Trump can round ’em up and punish them severely, then all will be right in Trumpworld.
When not searching for those leakers, Scaramucci will be wandering the White House in search of the government approval he needs for his big business deal.
He stands to make more than 90 million in selling his company when the government signs off. I am sure Trump will be able to smooth the path for The Mooch as long as The Mooch stays on course and hideously praises him every day... The Mooch can navigate his way through the Sunday shows with a type of wit that charms the Trump base. He is combative, quick, witty, but knows absolutely nothing about the type of communication needed to create, trust and security. He will just add to the confusion and misinformation. Ironic that he is the White House Communications Director. Perhaps the title should be White House Spin Doctor. He is just another snake in the swamp right next to Conway and Bannon and Sanders — all MAGA soldiers doing Trump’s bigoted, dysfunctional bidding... Scaramucci is a person in the same mold as Trump, which is why he was hired. He has no experience in government and has no intention to try to make the government look like it is functioning. The fact that he accepted this position, knowing the chaos Trump has created in just seven months, speaks to his naiveté. Just one more person in this alarmingly incompetent administration who has no clue, no professionalism, and no understanding of how government works. I don’t know how we can survive this administration unless Republicans and Democrats unite to stop the madness.