“He said some of the right things, but it still had a
bizarre quality to it,” said one former top CIA official. Trump’s comments
included “way too much campaign-related things” and “attacks on the media
[that] did not fit and were wrong.”
It was Trump’s ebullient self-promotion that most troubled
this former official and others I contacted. “Overall, the self-obsession and
campaign-style language was not appropriate in that place,” he said. “It should
not be all about you, at a place that memorializes people for whom it was about
others and about mission.”
Trump lauded his “great transition,” his “amazing team,” his
personal vigor (“I think I’m young”) and his intelligence (“I’m like a smart
person”). This rambling braggadocio is part of Trump’s style, and the country
(including the CIA) will have to get used to it. The more disturbing part of
his address was the attempt to treat agency employees, whose mission is
supposed to transcend elections, as political soul mates, along with military and
law enforcement.
Yes, he's still doing that "I'm like a smart person" thing. Let's follow that with two actual smart people. E.J. Dionne:
If power shifted decisively Friday to Donald Trump and a
Republican-controlled Congress, passion switched sides as well. As the marches
showed, the political energy in the country is now arrayed against Trump and
his agenda.
Republicans no longer have Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
to kick around. For years, they were able to direct the country’s discontents
toward a president they loathed and then a Democratic nominee they disliked
even more.
With control of both elected branches, the GOP, including
Trump, is the establishment. Over time, this will make the
faux populist anti-establishment appeal of Trump’s inaugural address ring
empty.
And yes, we now have the "alternative fact" administration.
Expressing rage at the media for pointing out how relatively
small Trump’s crowds were — a hint of how shallow his movement’s roots might be
— both Spicer and Trump lied outright in exaggerating the numbers of those who
attended Trump’s inauguration in comparison with the throngs that celebrated
Obama’s.
Challenged Sunday by Chuck Todd of NBC’s “Meet the Press” as
to why Spicer was asked to go to the podium and offer falsehoods, Kellyanne
Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, came up with a sound bite that George Orwell
might have been embarrassed to include in “1984.” It will go down as a defining phrase of the
Trump presidency.
“Sean Spicer, our press secretary,” she replied, “gave alternative facts.”
Our boldest liar yet as president. Congrats Donald. On to Margaret Sullivan:
Ari Fleischer, a former George W. Bush press secretary, saw
Saturday's bizarre session for what it was.
"This is called a statement you're told to make by the
President. And you know the President is watching," Fleischer wrote.
(MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski pegged it as "Sean Spicer's first hostage
video.")
It's being called bizarre by Ari Fleisher. Will continuous lies as a distraction work? Let's make sure it doesn't.
As Jessica Huseman of ProPublica put it: "Journalists
aren't going to get answers from Spicer. We are going to get answers by
digging. By getting our hands dirty. So let's all do that."
She's right. So was Tim O'Brien, executive editor of
Bloomberg View and a Trump biographer, who urged journalists to remember that
the White House briefing room is "spoon-feeding and Trump is a habitual
fabulist."
…
Journalists shouldn't rise to the bait and decide to treat
Trump as an enemy. Recalling at all times that their mission is truth-telling
and holding public officials accountable, they should dig in, paying far more
attention to actions than to sensational tweets or briefing-room lies - while
still being willing to call out falsehoods clearly when they happen.
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