Pbenjay's Blog

A/K/A Three Weeks in the White House

Well, we are three weeks or so into the new administration and it seems as if we can measure the chaos or dysfunction in seven day increments.  The first two weeks of February were particularly “busy” for the White House, the Press Secretary, the news reporters, the political analysts and let’s not forget the Facebook posters and the bloggers (lol).

The highlight or rather the LOW point of this first half of the month was probably Mitch McConnell’s authoritative, paternalistic, demeaning dictum citing Rule 19!  “SHE WAS WARNED, SHE WAS GIVEN AN EXPLANATION. NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED”.  OMG! The very nerve of her!  Well those words will live on in infamy for quite a while.  When spoken, they have a great cadence.  You will be hearing this mantra from feminists, you will see it emblazoned on tee shirts and baseball caps.  The very MINUTE I heard it, I wanted to design a tee shirt for Cafe Press and make a million dollars. 

But that was only one incident in a cacophony of chaos and crisis;  Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch uneasy with Trump’s Tweet calling Judge James Robert a “so-called judge” was quoted saying that the comments were “disheartening” and “demoralizing”.

Then there was the TOTALLY UNFOUNDED and UNTRUE  remarks by Mr. Trump that the media (newspapers and news reporters) do not report terrorist attacks to the public.  Mr. Trump knows better because he is all about ratings and he knows that disruption and disaster are always bigly news and bring bigly ratings.  So why in the world would ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC overlook and omit such a news opportunity?

In an interview with Bill O’Reilly, Trump again defended Vladimir Putin;  O’Reilly said, “He’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer”.  To which Donald Trump replied, “There are a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”….  After O’Reilly said he did not “know of any government leaders that are killers”, Trump turned to the Iraq war, seeming to equate George W. Bush with Putin, though he did not name the former president.

Who knows what and when?  Yesterday in the late afternoon, Kellyanne Conway appeared on MSNBC and when questioned about Mike Flynn’s position as National Security Advisor, her response was, “Yes, Gen. Flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the president,”.  Within the next hour or so, Sean Spicer, Press Secretary informed the news media that the president was “evaluating the situation”.  And late last evening Mr. Flynn tendered his resignation to the president.  Yet today we have heard that Mike Flynn offered his resignation  because he knew he was a lightening rod and then we heard from Sean Spicer that the president asked for and accepted the Flynn letter of resignation!   So I repeat who knows what and when?

Dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Japan’s Prime Minister turned into yet another bit of drama à la Donald.  Smack dab in the middle of the resort’s public dining room, not only did Mr. Trump take a call on his cell phone, it has also been reported that papers were passed and discussed in plain view of the  dining room’s guests as well as waiters and the piano player.  Oh dear, short memory all around!  Remember it was a waiter who brought Mitt Romney down with recording of his (Romney) offhand remarks about the infamous 40%.  And let’s not forget how horrified every Republican was with the carelessness of Hillary Clinton and her private server.  Note the word private with server and public with the dining room. National security where art thou?

Time for one more faux pas which is my own rather mild term for Kellyanne Conway’s gross error (and in some minds law-breaking ) remark urging the public to “Go buy Ivanka’s clothes”.  And how did Kellyanne get herself into this position?  Her boss tweeted, 

✔@realDonaldTrump

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!10:51 AM – 8 Feb 2017   A father defending his daughter is certainly admirable and okay BUT Mr. Trump should NOT have used the White House Twitter account!  Yes he did in addition to a personal tweet.

Stay tuned….