First, they are quiet. Then, they hide. After hiding, they speak but say little. We of course are talking about the spokespeople that work on behalf of Donald. In some cases, the less they speak the better, (looking at you, Steve Mnuchin). Others believe they are smarter than they are, (we have to yet to figure out what the heck you are doing Kellyanne). And then there is our favorite press secretary who is amazingly absent from the podium when things get tough. As The Donald Turns presents “Huff and Puff.”
As The Donald Turns; “Huff and Puff”
- Let’s just deal with the 300 pound gorilla in the hotel suite. Yes, you all watched Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes. And it was graphic and we all cringed. In the back of our minds we wondered if Melania watched it. We know Donald did even if will not admit it. But without getting into the weeds and the muck and the mire, there are a few inescapable facts that need to be addressed.
The party of family values is spending a lot of time pontificating about Ms. Daniels based on her chosen profession. They forget that Melania was a model, often sans clothing, when Donald met her.
For whatever they want to say about Ms. Daniels, Melania was having an affair with a married man, (Donald). We are not here to tear down Melania. We simply suggest that some on the judgmental wing of the right pump their brakes before running Ms. Daniels over.
As we say in sports, you need a scorecard to know the line-up, so let’s look at Donald’s scorecard….Donald cheated on wife #1 (Ivana) with eventual wife #2 (Marla). He cheated on wife #2 (Marla ) with eventual wife #3 (Melania). Donald cheated on Melania with his mistress, (former Playmate Karen McDougal). He cheated on his wife and mistress with Ms. Daniels in a one-night stand. In the cases of wives #1, 2, and 3 children were in the picture when he cheated. Family values indeed.
- That brings us to the folks paid to “huff and puff” in peddling the line of rubbish for Donald. In typical fashion, When things got dicey last Friday, the White House cancelled the press briefing. Donald had been all over the map when it came to signing the Omnibus Spending Bill. His staff had spent weeks negotiating it with congress. When it came to be on Thursday and the House passed it, Donald threw a tantrum. He got almost nothing that he wanted and threatened to veto it. That was when his staff had to remind him they negotiated it and he signed it, but not before being petulant about it. This is where it would be the job of the White House Press Secretary, The “Acerbity of Arkadelphia,” Sarah Sanders, to address the media’s questions. Instead, they cancelled the press briefing and bailed out for Mar-a-Lago.
- Sunday was the Daniels segment on 60 Minutes, their most watched episode in a decade. Clearly, there would be a lot for Ms. Acerbity to address with the media on Monday. Nope. She bailed and left the job to understudy Raj Shah.
Now, Shah has a different style than Sanders. He still peddles the garbage, as is his job. But he does so in a less confrontational manner than does Sanders. Although you can still tell he does not want to be there. He tends to sweat like Donald does when someone joking yells into the Oval Office, “Hey Bob Mueller is coming down the hallway!!”
- Both Sanders and Shah have said the president denies everything having to do with Ms. Daniels. They deny she was threatened in a parking lot by anyone. And, they deny he has ever heard of her. They deny there is anyone even named Stormy Daniels. And they deny denying anything and they will continue to deny if you continue to ask them.
- On Monday, Shah was finally asked the question so many of us have wondered for some time, “Given that Sarah Sanders says one thing, and then a week later it is proven to be untrue, why should anyone believe anything that is said from that podium?” Here is where that specifically stemmed from. On March 15th, “The Acerbic Arkadelphian” said that General H.R. McMaster would not be leaving the administration as NSA Director. A week later he was gone.
- Part of what makes Sanders so bad at her job is that her answers fall under of several categories:
- “We have been very clear about this already….” No, you have not or we would not keep asking the same damn question.
- “I Have not spoken to the president about that….” Well then get the hell off the stage and go ask him…otherwise you are just reading things you could have sent out in an email.
- “We have nothing more to add to what we have already said on that subject.”
She is seriously useless to her constituency, the media. So the one time she actually claims to have spoken to the president on an issue, McMaster, either she lied or the president used her to promulgate his own lie. Either way, she served no purpose. She stood up there and huffed and puffed with the media, getting indignant, yet lending nothing to the daily discourse of events.
- Tuesday, when discussing the administration’s plan to add a question to the 2020 Census regarding citizenship status, Sanders said, “It’s something that has been included in every census since 1965, with the exception of 2010, when it was removed.” Her ‘huffing and puffing’ was a complete lie…or completely wrong…take your pick. The question has not been in since 1950 because immigrants were not returning the forms and it was tilting congressional representation and government financial allocations. Even the most basic of facts escape these huffers and puffers.
- Also on Tuesday, “Huffy Puffy” Sanders said the White House is not investigating $500 million in loans made to Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm. Kushner’s business was bankrupt, and he got some loans based on promising access to the White House and his father-in-law. It is part of the Mueller investigation. It has been widely reported, even by Donald’s HR department at Fox, that there is an internal investigation. Yet Sanders denied it today. The recalcitrance has gone beyond the absurd and just become a waste of everyone’s time.
- Part of the problem of course comes with a president who was unqualified for the job, knowing nothing about how the government works, and having gained little knowledge in the 14 months he has been in office. He makes up policy, believing that is how it works and his spokes people tap dance like Al Jolson. It has been revealed that when the president tweeted last week he would try to pay for the border wall through “M,” he was referring to the military. Sanders, who apparently also did not have to take government classes at Ouachita Baptist University, said the president was looking at the option of taking some of the new funding for the military and using it to pay for the wall. Uh yeah….not so much. Neither of them realizes this is not the Trump University where you can just shuck and jive through finances. It requires the approval of congress to move allocated funds from one department and move them to another…and in an election year? The GOP move money from the military? As we say at As The Donald Turns, “Child, Please.”
- We mentioned Kellyanne Conway, and we are happy to bring back Revolutionary War Barbie. She is heading the team that is getting to the bottom of the national opioid crisis. She has no medical expertise. And, she has no pharmaceutical expertise. Oh, but she has violated the federal Hatch Act three times and gotten away with each time so there is that.
Last week, in a speech at the Next Generation Forum in Washington DC, Conway was speaking to college age students when she advised them the best way to stay away from addictive pain killers was to spend their money on junk food instead.
“They’re very, very fastidious about what goes into their body. And then you buy a street drug for $5 or $10 and it’s laced with fentanyl, and that’s it. So I guess my short advice is, as somebody double your age, eat the ice cream, have the French fry, don’t buy the street drug. Believe me, it all works out.”
Well, that should fix it all.
- Lastly, tonight there is help coming for the Huffers and Puffers in the communications department…a real ray of sunshine, so to speak. Yes, the White House has hired a new communications department staffer. Caroline Sunshine.
Seriously. She is 22 years old. She has zero experience in politics, or professional media management. However, she was a star on Disney Channel’s “Shake It” from 2010-2013, so things will only get rosier from here.
