Friday, July 28, 2017

What We've Got Here Is Failure to Communicate

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Supposedly one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and that seems to be the case with Donald Trump as he keeps packing his inner circle with incompetents and then staring on in bafflement as his administration continues to lurch and stumble like a jalopy with three flat tires.

Trump, a classic narcissist, is notoriously stingy with praise because, like most narcissists, he knows that good outcomes are invariably the results of his actions and decisions - and not those of underlings.  It's always about him.  And conversely, anytime an outcome falls short, it is the fault of someone else.

It's a bit like bad reality television.  When something goes wrong, heads roll, and then new people are rushed in to fix the situation.  The problem with that approach is that Trump keeps fishing from the same pool of incompetents.

This week Donald Trump has been at war with Jeff Sessions, his own attorney general.  While it appears obvious to most of the country that Trump is trying to force Sessions into resigning so that he can appoint a replacement who will then fire Special Investigator Robert Mueller, Session's former Republican colleagues in the Senate are openly pressuring Trump to leave Sessions at his post.  So far Jeff Sessions has been permitted to remain in charge of the Justice Department, but with Trump's explosive personality, he will certainly fire the attorney general at some point in the not-to-distant future.

Trump has also battled "leakers" this week, individuals who  provide journalists with inside information on the administration, inconvenient truths that the Trump officials would rather keep secret.  To that end he brought in a new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, apparently to clean house and plug the leaks.

The house-cleaning began immediately with the expected resignation of Trump's fumbling and inept press secretary, Sean Spicer, who said that he could not work with Scaramucci.  But Spicer's was not the only head Scaramucci intended to mount on his office wall.  He also had his sights set on White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon - both important players in the first six months of the Trump administration.  Scaramucci (a.k.a. "The Mooch") would "communicate" his displeasure with both of these sycophants, and he would clean house.

Yesterday "The Mooch" met with Ryan Lizza, a reporter with The New Yorker magazine, for a relaxed "on-the-record" interview.  During that conversation, Moochie not only disparaged Priebus and Bannon, he did so with a level of intensity and vulgarity seldom witnessed from a public official.  He called Reince Priebus a "f--king paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoic," and he said Bannon was trying to suck a part of his own anatomy.  He also said that he was going to clean house in the Communications Department and "fire them all."  And there was much, much more.

After The Mooch's colorful statements began popping up in the press, the new communications director regrouped and tried to blame the press.  He said that he did not understand that the interview with Lizza was "on-the-record."

Probably someone with the duties of a White House Communications Director should be expected to clarify up front in an interview what is on-the-record and what is not - but The Mooch failed that basic test of communication skills. Then, in a show of pure petulance, he vowed that he would never trust another reporter again.

A communications director who vows to never trust reporters.

Yup.  It sounds like The Donald has reeled in another incompetent.

And don't think Stephen Colbert doesn't appreciate Trump's bold choice, because he most certainly does!


1 comment:

Don said...

Colbert is the gift that keeps on giving. I cannot retire for the evening without at least some of his wonderfully phrased satire.