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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Trump’s Press Secretary Begins As He Means to Go On

Open Thread: Trump’s Press Secretary Begins As He Means to Go On

by Anne Laurie|  January 22, 20176:03 pm| 139 Comments

This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes, Bring on the Brawndo!, Get Angry

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Pretty sure the shock collar that Trump controls via phone app makes his suit fit weird. pic.twitter.com/LcjbL7FBrX

— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 22, 2017

President Trump's inauguration drew the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." – Sean Spicer pic.twitter.com/t1nBWPZmWi

— Vox (@voxdotcom) January 21, 2017

Remember Kremlinology? When serious people made careers parsing small bits of truth out of the USSR’s non-stop flood of bullshit, lies, and fairy tales? Yeah, that’s another Russian import I could just as well have lived without.

When even Dubya’s press secretary (“Watch what you do, watch what you say”) is embarrassed for his colleague…

This is called a statement you're told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 21, 2017

And you know the President is insanely insecure. https://t.co/FKdd1J9bdE

— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 21, 2017

Please stop sympathizing with poor Sean Spicer. He took the shilling. Nobody blackmailed him into doing this job. No, wait…

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) January 22, 2017

Kellyanne Conway on @MeetThePress: Spicer offered "alternative facts"@chucktodd: "Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods."

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 22, 2017

Word of the day:

myrmidon: a person who executes without question or scruple a master's commands.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) January 22, 2017

Obvious lies serve a purpose for an administration. They watch who challenges them and who loyally repeats them. The people must watch, too.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) January 22, 2017

The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 13, 2016

Trump has his subordinates tell obvious lies.It costs them any independent standing, makes them more completely his. https://t.co/sTsAWTuCmB

— jtlevy (@jtlevy) January 22, 2017


In October, I asked Sean Spicer to confirm a quote.

"I never said it," he replied.

But it was on tape.https://t.co/2qu2hofdlg

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) January 22, 2017

This was a reason why I've usually avoided getting comments from Spicer. He's a liar, and not a very good one. https://t.co/rgoMG3DLQk

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 22, 2017

The fact that no one -not Kushner, Bannon or Priebus -had the smarts or standing to say sending @PressSec out was a bad idea is v. alarming

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) January 21, 2017

He was not Trump's first choice for press secretary, and was pushed by Priebus.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 22, 2017

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Reader Interactions

139Comments

  1. 1.

    PsiFighter37

    January 22, 2017 at 6:07 pm

    Who was his first choice? Jason Miller, the shitheel who got canned once it was found out he was having an affair (oh the irony)?

    What a fucking fail parade. The media needs to stop being polite and start calling this assholes liars, and what they are doing as lying. Say it in the tone that the knuckledraggers in the boonies will understand.

  2. 2.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:07 pm

    Shut up Maggie. You and the whoring newspaper you work for brought us this living nightmare.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    January 22, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    The President has clothes. /Sean Spicer.

  4. 4.

    khead

    January 22, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    I made a joke yesterday about that press conference being like a WWF segment – and I keep seeing people making jokes about Baghdad Bob. But I really think the proper Sean Spicer comparison for yesterday’s presser is Ron Ziegler circa 1973.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    January 22, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: This.

  6. 6.

    Shell

    January 22, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    Two months till Spicer leaves to spend ‘more time with his family’.

  7. 7.

    cmorenc

    January 22, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    Here’s the most apt metaphor for the job description and character Trump’s real prime go-to media spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway: she’s a squid spewing clouds of ink to deceive and distract. Sean Spicer may be Trump’s titular press secretary, but it’s Conway they send out most often to appear on talking head MSM programs.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    I said it earlier but the way that suit jacket ill fits is creepy. Makes Spicer look like his head is about to either shrink or explode ala Scanners.
    These guys make a fortune. And none of them can get an attire that looks normal?

  9. 9.

    JPL

    January 22, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    Trump gave him the statement and now Trump said he’s disappointed in him. Let the Hunger Games begin.

    This is a pretty good round-up about Spicer
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/the-perfect-meme-for-the-alternative-facts-era-seanspicersays/?postshare=6931485122667698&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.2d2b33bf8d39

  10. 10.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    January 22, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    Pay attention to Kasparov. The blatant lies are intentional.

  11. 11.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 22, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    @PsiFighter37: the knuckledraggers will interpret it as the lamestream media coming after their savior and trying to make HIM look like the liar when everybody knows it’s the media who’s the liars.

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 22, 2017 at 6:11 pm

    The point of this exercise is not the lying. It’s to tell us that they know we know they’re lying and they don’t give a shit. It’s just another primate dominance display.

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    January 22, 2017 at 6:12 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    We should definitely listen to Kasparov.

  14. 14.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    January 22, 2017 at 6:16 pm

    Trump needs to resurrect the real Goebels and Reifenstahl, they would both be embarrassed by this shitshow.

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 6:16 pm

    @zhena gogolia: I feel so comforted that we are now relying on Russian dissidents to instruct us on how we should approach/interact with our US Govt.
    This is fine.

  16. 16.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 22, 2017 at 6:16 pm

    @Baud: That may be true, you weren’t elected.

  17. 17.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:19 pm

    India has pretty dirty politics, nepotism, corruption, you name it. But I can’t think of a single politician who is worse than our current waking nightmare. In terms of both ineptitude and malevolence. He has put them all to shame.

    ETA: If it is found that a politician was colluding with Pakistan, his career would be dead in water.

  18. 18.

    geg6

    January 22, 2017 at 6:19 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    And Julia Ioffe, too.

  19. 19.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:22 pm

    Kasparov loves to blame Obama for everything, so there is that.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 22, 2017 at 6:22 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    True. True.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    Gabriel ShermanVerified account
    ‏@ gabrielsherman
    Trump sent Spicer out to give statement yesterday, a longtime Trump adviser says, but afterwards Trump said “he was terrible.”

    “I think I’ll take that job that a thin-skinned mercurial whack job man-baby offered me, cause that sounds like a a secure, long term gig. Honey, let’s go ahead an make an offer on that beach house….”

  22. 22.

    clay

    January 22, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    Re: that last tweet… I seriously doubt that anyone in Trumpville is enough of a genius mastermind to “trap” their own Press Sec. (And to what end, I wonder… doesn’t make any sense.). And the fact that a NYT reporter uncritically forwards this spin… well I’d say it tarnishes the Times, but you can’t really tarnish a turd.

  23. 23.

    CaseyL

    January 22, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Sure, but does he have any advice on what to do about it? So far I like the idea of the MSM boycotting Trump altogether, but that’s about as likely as the GOP turning against him.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    January 22, 2017 at 6:26 pm

    Such a lying shithead. I will enjoy watching his certain flameout.

    Seriously, I have begun thinking about how all of these people will be returned the private life, in spectacular and amusing fashion.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 6:28 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Kasparov has at times been pretty tough on Obama but there are also a lot of things he has stated that merit contemplation, re: Obama. IMO.
    If we are to take his perspective on what to do about Trump maybe we should consider he had a few nuggets about Obama’s tenure, as well.

  26. 26.

    Haydnseek

    January 22, 2017 at 6:29 pm

    @Corner Stone: Well, they are Trump brand suits, after all.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    January 22, 2017 at 6:30 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I agree. It’s like gravity has no effect on whatever material the suit’s made from.

  28. 28.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:31 pm

    @Corner Stone: In hindsight, it does look like Obama gave some people the benefit of doubt that they didn’t really deserve.

    ETA: I do not have any objections to O’s mid-east policy in particular or foreign policy general and on that I do disagree with Kasparov.

  29. 29.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 22, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: obama really, really wanted to find good in republicans. Any republican. He didn’t because there wasn’t.

  30. 30.

    PPCLI

    January 22, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    @clay: I don’t think it is inherently implausible that this was meant to undercut Spicer. It’s plausible that there is a tug-of-war between Priebus+the RNC people versus the radical long-time Trumpists like Bannon and Conway. When Spicer was made press sec, it was seen as a victory for Priebus and a step toward slowly RNC-izing Trump, in a process that would progressively squeeze out the old Trumpites.

    Bannon etc. seem to be the sorts of people who can handle themselves in a bureaucratic knife-fight.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 22, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    Well, that was disappointing. Congrats, Falcons’ fans.

    I still feel pretty good about how the Pack’s season worked out. Making it to the NFC championship game from where they were 10 games into the season was pretty amazing.

  32. 32.

    chris

    January 22, 2017 at 6:36 pm

    @Corner Stone: Looks like he borrowed the jacket and shirt from someone bigger than him. Also needs to learn to wear a tie.

  33. 33.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:36 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Pure distilled evil, that’s what that party has become. The “good” republicans are all Dems now. I at least know 2 besides of our bed breaking host.

  34. 34.

    Timurid

    January 22, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Modi is worse than Trump. He’s evil and he’s good at it.

  35. 35.

    lollipopguild

    January 22, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Obama spent way too long trying to get RepThugs to work with him. He should have stopped that after one year.

  36. 36.

    khead

    January 22, 2017 at 6:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Aaron Rodgers took a practice squad to the NFC title game.

  37. 37.

    CaseyL

    January 22, 2017 at 6:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I have a soft spot for the Falcons because their head coach was Seattle’s defensive coordinator; he’s sort of a home boy.

    (Not enough of a soft spot to want them to beat us, which they did anyway. Oh, well.)

  38. 38.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    @Timurid: Modi is competent and hasn’t colluded with Pak. He wasn’t a TV personality and has been in electoral politics for well over 2 decades. This is not to excuse his role in Godhra.
    Now I need a ritual cleansing bath, for actually defending PMM.

  39. 39.

    Mike in NC

    January 22, 2017 at 6:42 pm

    Trump will go through staff like a box of Kleenex.

  40. 40.

    Feebog

    January 22, 2017 at 6:43 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    The problem with listening to Kasparov is that Trump is not as smart as Putin. Putin is a long range thinker and planner, while Trump is impetuous, incompetent and petulant. Spicer’s response yesterday was not part of a carefully thought out move on the political chess board; it was at the order of a seriously incapacitated man-child who can not stand any type of criticism.

  41. 41.

    raven

    January 22, 2017 at 6:43 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: They were awfully beat up and probably shot their wad in that incredible game with the Pokes. Hell of a finish for them even if they did look like the Berz today.

  42. 42.

    FlipYrWhig

    January 22, 2017 at 6:46 pm

    @lollipopguild: The thing is, trying to get Republicans on board is also an important way to show moderate Democrats you’re making an effort to be… whatever it is they like seeing.

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    January 22, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    These guys make a fortune. And none of them can get an attire that looks normal?

    Are you sure that Spicer has actually received a paycheck from the Deadbeat Shitgibbon that didn’t bounce?

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 6:50 pm

    It’s not hard to imagine Spicer in a Nazi uniform.

  45. 45.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 22, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yes, kudos to the Pack. They had a very good season. I was torn today, because the Packers were my childhood team, but I lived in Atlanta for 25 years while the Falcons went from nowhere to respectability. But now I can unreservedly root for the Falcons against whichever team comes out of the AFC.

    As for that, I am definitely rooting for the Steelers today. I admire Brady’s talent, but the Patriots organization is riddled with Trumpists.

    ETA: Damn, that singer just butchered the national anthem.

  46. 46.

    SRW1

    January 22, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Trump will go through staff like a box of Kleenex.

    Can he make them sign NDAs with $5 million penalty clauses, though?

  47. 47.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    @Elizabelle: Goering?

  48. 48.

    Timurid

    January 22, 2017 at 6:53 pm

    @Feebog:
    I’m not sure I buy into the whole Putin as nine-dimensional chess master idea. Anyone whose strategy involves Donald Trump controlling nuclear weapons is more than a little unhinged…

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 22, 2017 at 6:54 pm

    @raven: That’s exactly my take on it.

  50. 50.

    Barbara

    January 22, 2017 at 6:55 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Maggie “mom of three” Haberman is nothing more than a gossip columnist along with the rest of the NYT political desk. (I include the mom of three because it is on her twitter profile and it is hard for me to imagine putting that in a professional description of any kind.)

  51. 51.

    Yarrow

    January 22, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    obama really, really wanted to find good in republicans. Any republican. He didn’t because there wasn’t.

    I think it was a weak spot of Obama’s for sure.

    Thanks for the Kasparov tweets. I’m just getting caught up with things and hadn’t seen them. He’s great on stuff like this.

  52. 52.

    raven

    January 22, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): My lady and I were just starting out when they went to the Super Bowl last time.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 7:00 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Very possibly. Finally started reading William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich today. Still on young Hitler.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    @lollipopguild: @schrodingers_cat: Obama spent way too long trying to get RepThugs to work with him. He should have stopped that after one year.

    In January 2010, the Republicans Obama was trying to work with were Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu. Just to name a few.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 7:02 pm

    @Barbara: She sure saw to her kids getting a good Commander in Chief.

    Moron. I still think some heads will roll at the Fuck the Fucking New York Times. Whether in our lifetimes, though …

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 22, 2017 at 7:02 pm

    @jake the antisoshul soshulist: Retired CIA Officer Bob Baer is currently, via the History Channel, looking for Hitler in Argentina with a couple of former US Army SOF guys and a UN Mass Atrocities investigator. He’s got you covered!

  57. 57.

    catclub

    January 22, 2017 at 7:06 pm

    Trump Ramps Up the Narcissism in an Appalling Speech

    His visit to the CIA was supposed to reassure the intelligence community. Boy did that backfire.

    At Slate.

    How do you tell the narcissist that he sounds even stupider when he says how smart he thinks he is? Sounds like a job for the man who can tell his wife that a new fur coat would make her look too stout.

  58. 58.

    Kathleen

    January 22, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    @Barbara: Shows she’s down with the NYT’s upper middle/upper class desired demographic.

  59. 59.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 22, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    @Barbara: @Kathleen: Hillary lists mom and grandma on her twitter profile.

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 22, 2017 at 7:12 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    the Patriots organization is riddled with Trumpists.

    They even hired Kellyanne Conway to be their new mascot.

  61. 61.

    lollipopguild

    January 22, 2017 at 7:13 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: I understand what you mean but certainly after the elections in 2010 Obama should have cut back on the outreach. it’s like the joke about your new date- you want pizza and a beer and she wants rusty hubcaps and draino.

  62. 62.

    lollipopguild

    January 22, 2017 at 7:15 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good Times!

  63. 63.

    Yarrow

    January 22, 2017 at 7:16 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s not hard to imagine Spicer in a Nazi uniform.

    Maybe that’s why he isn’t bothering to buy new suits. He knows he’ll be required to wear a uniform soon enough.

    Fun fact I didn’t know: Sean Spicer is a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. I wonder how they feel about his lies?

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 7:21 pm

    @Yarrow: it’s the haircut. Military.

    Although I hold the military in higher esteem than Lying Sean Spicer.

  65. 65.

    clay

    January 22, 2017 at 7:22 pm

    @PPCLI: I just think it’s much more likely that Trump got in a snit about “the dishonest media” “lying” about his “inauguration” “attendance”. So he sent Spicer out there to salve his bruised ego.

    Priebus amd Conway were basically spewing the same bullshit on TV. It’s not a “trap”; it’s the Trump administration’s official policy to push this idiocy.

  66. 66.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    @Elizabelle: I suspect he did remember having said that he would resign before lying, and that’s why he was so emotional and overwrought. OTOH, as the tweets above show, he didn’t exactly have a sterling reputation when he said that.

  67. 67.

    Barbara

    January 22, 2017 at 7:26 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: If I did it I would lose professional respect and it irks me that anyone might think of me as less of a mother because — like every man I know — I try to keep these things separate. And yes, I have three kids. Imagine someone saying “and I have an awesome girlfriend” on the equivalent of a CV.

  68. 68.

    Carolina Dave

    January 22, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @catclub: ha ha. I have a great story to add to this. My dad, same age as Trump, gave my mom a fur coat one year for her birthday. She was thrilled. When she tried it on for the first time, he remarked, “Wow, you look like Raquel Welch!” My mom loved the complimentary comparison. Then my dad remarked, “Wait, you look like a bear!” So the fur is always known as the bearskin coat.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @Barbara: Maureen Orth, aka the Widow Russert, is (or was? haven’t seen her name in a while) one of the most respected magazine writers in DC. Her twitter handle is (or was?) Lukesmom. Offered a lot of insight into that smarmy little shit’s undeserved self-satisfaction

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 22, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I thought that was Paddington Bear.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 7:32 pm

    @Carolina Dave: he remarked, “Wow, you look like Raquel Welch!” My mom loved the complimentary comparison. Then my dad remarked, “Wait, you look like a bear!”

    I think I would like your dad.

  72. 72.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 22, 2017 at 7:33 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): I saw a “who wore it best?” Slideshow that included those two and a Nestle Crunch bar.

  73. 73.

    BruceFromOhio

    January 22, 2017 at 7:35 pm

    Its not POST TRUTH, it’s ALT-TRUTH.

    I don’t like dwarves the Steelers, they’re greedy and blind, blind to the lives of those they deem lesser than their own.

    But Orcs the Patriots I hate more.

    And may the Atlanta Falcons be the end of them all.

  74. 74.

    Emerald

    January 22, 2017 at 7:37 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Just finished Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, about our ambassador to Germany in 1933, William Dodd and his promiscuous daughter Martha. Dodd was a rather poor, sincere professor of history who didn’t fit in with the millionaire sophisticates of the State Dept., but eventually became know as the Cassandra of Europe. He predicted it all after observing the Nazis during his time in Berlin. Martha was entranced by the Nazis at first, but changed her mind. She was even involved with Rudolph Diels, the first head of the Gestapo. Fascinating stuff, watching the beginnings of fascism from the ground, as it were. The book takes it from just after Hitler’s ascension to the Chancellery to the Night of the Long Knives, and then follows the Dodds for a bit.

    Absolutely applicable to our situation today. Actually, I agree that tRump himself is a man-child who couldn’t plan a dinner party, but Bannon is not, and I strongly suspect he’s the one calling the shots.

  75. 75.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 22, 2017 at 7:41 pm

    @clay: Are there no weight requirements for the Reserves. He is rather Tunchesque.

  76. 76.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    January 22, 2017 at 7:44 pm

    @Feebog: It doesn’t have to be a deliberate plan to have us end up in the same place. We’ll get “critical thinking fatigue” regardless of the basic intention.

  77. 77.

    West of the Cascades

    January 22, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    @lollipopguild: hat tip to the John Cole classic from 2009 (https://balloon-juice.com/2013/07/10/tire-rims-and-anthrax/)

    I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    @Emerald: great recommendation. Will read that next. Thank you.

  79. 79.

    Sam

    January 22, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    Trump will use people like Spicer and dump him whenever it is convenient. I bet Spicer doesn’t last 4 months. He will do the same with all the other flaks like Conway. Doesn’t matter, he will just find new zombies

  80. 80.

    randy khan

    January 22, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    For Hillary, it’s about positioning (and she’d hardly change it now).

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 8:05 pm

    Obama’s twitter bio, FWIW, is “Dad, husband, President, citizen.”

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 22, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    @Elizabelle: Spicer is a Commander in the US Navy Reserve.

  83. 83.

    Mike G

    January 22, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.
    — Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 13, 2016

    “Most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” – Michael Rivero

    “It is the dream of every weak and cowardly man to have other, superior men under their heel. Men they can legally fuck over with impunity. As a balm their massive sense of inferiority, weak, little men have always felt a powerful need to be able to fuck around with the lives of their betters.” — Driftglass

  84. 84.

    Emerald

    January 22, 2017 at 8:11 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    The Shirer book you have is still read for a reason. One of the best. Shirer also has a two-volume Berlin Diaries, with it all happening in real time, so to speak. Well worth the time.

  85. 85.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    January 22, 2017 at 8:15 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: So. George Lincoln Rockwell was a naval officer and a Nazi. Bannon was in the navy and he’s an anti-semitic, white nationalist.

  86. 86.

    joel hanes

    January 22, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    Open thread ? Great.

    Sadly No and Whiskey Fire have awakened from their Obama-slumbers.
    Can The Poor Man be far behind?

    And can I hope for Fafblog? Pleeease ?
    I’ll be really really good, and wash the dishes every night without complaining.
    Honest.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    January 22, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: what does lying on TV do to his Navy reserve career?

  88. 88.

    amk

    January 22, 2017 at 8:27 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: mebbe she is shooting for spicer’s post.

  89. 89.

    burnspbesq

    January 22, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    These guys make a fortune.

    You and I have vastly different ideas of what constitutes “a fortune.”

    Josh Earnest, Obama’s press secretary, made $172k in his eighth year in the job. Spicer probably makes no more than $130-ish, in a brutally expensive place to live. He probably buys his suits at Land’s End (or Jos. A. Bank, but only on sale).

  90. 90.

    sukabi

    January 22, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    @cmorenc: yeah well her Dorian Grey isn’t holding up very well…compare pics of her from 9 months ago to now…she’s exhausted that portrait with all the bald faced lying.

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    January 22, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    Spicer’s motto: gaslight macht frei.

  92. 92.

    Ksmiami

    January 22, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    @Emerald: I read that too – fascinating story – tragic that no one listened to the Dodds and they came to be regarded as pains.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    @burnspbesq: Sorry, assface. But if you can afford a $500 suit you can afford $200 or less to have it tailored for you. You are going on national fucking TV for fuck’s sake.

  94. 94.

    burnspbesq

    January 22, 2017 at 8:39 pm

    Correction: Earnest made $176K last year, which is the max for anyone working in the WH other than the Presidemt.

    link

  95. 95.

    burnspbesq

    January 22, 2017 at 8:44 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    if you can afford a $500 suit

    Which nobody who works for the Federal Government can do, but you’re too fucking stupid to know what you don’t know, so go ahead and make a laughing-stock of yourself, shithead.

  96. 96.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    @burnspbesq: Fuck you, clown. This isn’t “nobody” working for the Fed Govt. Investing in four or five off the rack suits is not going to break someone making six figures. Ask me how I know.
    Fucking douche canoe.

  97. 97.

    sukabi

    January 22, 2017 at 8:50 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: think those are there because she’s been hounded for being cold, calculating and not very approachable.

  98. 98.

    BruceFromOhio

    January 22, 2017 at 8:57 pm

    Perhaps this is why no hand-egg thread – blowouts on both. Sorry, Stillers, neither squad was up to the task.

    Falcons-Pats Superb Owl.

    GO FALCONS

  99. 99.

    Barbara

    January 22, 2017 at 9:00 pm

    @sukabi: She is a politician. Maggie Haberman isn’t. I keep imagining her putting her kids to bed and then sitting at her computer just throwing together a bunch of stuff she heard during the day like the above tweets — Ooh, maybe Spicer is being set up! It’s past time for us to care why Trump does what he does. As my husband says, it all comes back to the fact that he can’t see more than two inches in front of his nose. Making it more complicated than that is pointless. The point is, his press secretary is point blank LYING. An article of 500 words in which “He is lying” is repeated over and over would be more worthwhile.

  100. 100.

    amk

    January 22, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    kenyan: Dad, husband, President, citizen.

    guess the last one is for the racist birther pos.

  101. 101.

    amk

    January 22, 2017 at 9:03 pm

    @Barbara: yup.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    January 22, 2017 at 9:07 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    obama really, really wanted to find good in republicans.

    My take is that Obama has huge respect for the institutions and history of our national government, and as such, has respect for the representatives that the people have sent to Washington. He isn’t going to take political advantage that causes the institutions to be damaged.

    Remember when he went to the House Republican Retreat in 2010? (1:18:00) I haven’t seen it in a while, but IIRC, he told them they were slitting their own throats, and notice that Boehner and Cantor have been gone a while…

    I note that Mike Pence is bloviating early on in the piece (he was a Congressman then).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who needs to find the time to watch it again.)

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    January 22, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What ever happened to being an “Officer and a Gentleman”?

    Gentlemen don’t tell huge lies in public for nearly no reason. If it was to save a ship, or a captured senior officer, or win a battle, maybe. But to polish his boss’s shoes? No. Not a gentleman.

    I was more of a gentleman than that as a lowly Bosun’s Mate swabbie.

  104. 104.

    rachel

    January 22, 2017 at 9:41 pm

    @Elizabelle: Yeah, but would it fit?

  105. 105.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 9:48 pm

    @Corner Stone: He’s a fucking “new chronology” coo-coo. I wouldn’t trust anything he says about anything.

  106. 106.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 9:51 pm

    @liberal: He thinks time started at some other time than a long time ago? I want to make sure I understand what it is you are saying he believes.

  107. 107.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    @rachel: Those Nazis…they have the very best tailors.

  108. 108.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    @Emerald: Yeah, I read In the Garden of Beasts last summer. It’s very relevant to our current situation. Great book.

  109. 109.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    @Yarrow:

    I think it was a weak spot of Obama’s for sure.

    Given that he appointed Comey, it’s not just a weak spot, it’s a tragic flaw.

  110. 110.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    @Corner Stone: Just google “new chronology.” It’s fucking nutso.

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 22, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    @Corner Stone: Hugo Boss even.

  112. 112.

    fuckwit

    January 22, 2017 at 10:00 pm

    @Another Scott: This. For Obama it has always been about the Institutions and the Constitution.

    I got annoyed with Obama in 2009 because it seemed he had no principles, was just caving in at every opportunity. Then I realized, no, he has massively strong principles– unshakable principles– and that was his firm belief in Democracy and the Constitution and the process of compromise, negotiation, rational discourse, and putting country before party. I developed a tremendous respect for him after I figured that out, and have maintained it to this day. He truly believes in the arc of history, and that a government of the people can be sustained.

    I also have wondered if his faith is perhaps misplaced, and we are too far gone now into Idiocracy. But if the Women’s March starts organizing and turning into a movement, and they start registering and motivating voters to vote and running and supporting candidates, and if Obama and Holder can succeed in undoing all of the voter suppression, then maybe we can save this sinking ship after all.

  113. 113.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 10:02 pm

    @fuckwit:

    Then I realized, no, he has massively strong principles– unshakable principles– and that was his firm belief in Democracy and the Constitution and the process of compromise, negotiation, rational discourse, and putting country before party.

    Yeah, but that’s not coherent. Believing you can rationally converse with a bunch of nihilists is itself not rational.

  114. 114.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 10:04 pm

    @liberal: Honestly, I did. I could not make heads or tails of it. That was why I asked.

  115. 115.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 10:09 pm

    We are going to see an enormous effort to try and tell us how Obama can not fail but can only be failed over the last eight years.
    But he did set up a lot of what is happening now. That is just the truth. People can try it on but reality is going to pull their receipts.

  116. 116.

    randy khan

    January 22, 2017 at 10:28 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Jos. A. Bank would ensure that there was a better fit.

  117. 117.

    randy khan

    January 22, 2017 at 10:31 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Given Spicer’s employment over the last 7 years, he could afford a decent suit.

  118. 118.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    January 22, 2017 at 10:37 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    New Chronology.

  119. 119.

    liberal

    January 22, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    @Corner Stone: apropos what? Destroying his own legacy by having appointed Comey? Yep.

  120. 120.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 22, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    So Spicer is next with a plastic spork in his back. As I predicted quarterly purges in the Trump admin.

  121. 121.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 10:47 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Yeah. That’s fucking nuts. I had no idea Kasparov was in that puke funnel. I don’t actually follow him all that closely, shockingly.
    It makes no sense. I am baffled and have nothing else to really say about it.

  122. 122.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 10:49 pm

    @liberal: Apropos of my balls? Obama made a number of strategic and ultimately significant errors. Personnel is policy and I DGAF what some puke ass defenders want to say. Comey was death on a stick and I was not the only asshole here screaming about it in real time.

  123. 123.

    EBT

    January 22, 2017 at 10:52 pm

    @burnspbesq: I live on 10K a year and buy my stuff from goodwill. I can dress myself better than that lying sack of human shit.

  124. 124.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 22, 2017 at 11:08 pm

    @Corner Stone: So what do think Obama should have done, short tore up the Constitution and made himself dictator? Obama had gotten hardliner on them they would have screamed “oppression” loader or are you forgetting how Obama was the black Jimmy Carter, son of Hitler and Stalin? Even Abraham Lincoln couldn’t deal with a party that lost it shit and was living in it’s own reality.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:20 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: This is some excuse garbage bullshit. Obama did not have to be Hitler redux. He was also not Jimmy Carter III.
    He had agency. He made decisions. He is a grown ass man that did what he did.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 11:21 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: @Corner Stone: So what do think Obama should have done,

    Stopped her from voting for the Iraq War, from using a private email server, from entangling herself in the bloated foundation neither she nor her husband could explain to the public, from spending her off-years giving speeches for money cause she and Bubba were barely scraping by on $100 million, stopped Bubba from blundering on to Loretta Lynch’s plane, talked her out of chasing one symbolic electoral vote in Omaha instead of campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan…

    Really, only a dumbass like Obama could have gotten in the way of a brilliant, far-sighted and charismatic politician like Hillary Clinton.

  127. 127.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:24 pm

    They made me…I had no choice…I had to…what did you expect me to do…what would you have done…

  128. 128.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:26 pm

    Speeches…emails…
    That is fucking hilarious.

  129. 129.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    One person was elected as President of the United States and then elected again. Another ran for that position but fell short.
    Stop trying to put them into the same fucking box, you fucking fool.

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 11:31 pm

    S/He had agency. S/He made decisions. S/He is a grown ass wo/man that did what s/he did.

  131. 131.

    Kilgore Trout

    January 22, 2017 at 11:32 pm

    @Emerald: After I read your comment I grabbed this from my library for my kindle – looking forward to reading it.

  132. 132.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 22, 2017 at 11:33 pm

    @Corner Stone: Speeches…emails…

    You think those things had no effect on the election? They shouldn’t have, but they did.

    One person was elected as President of the United States and then elected again. Another ran for that position but fell short.

    You’re almost there.

  133. 133.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:36 pm

    You left out the fucking hilarious part, moran.

  134. 134.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:40 pm

    I guess waxing the Official White House Kneepads still has merit or value.

  135. 135.

    Corner Stone

    January 22, 2017 at 11:41 pm

    Slurp slurp slurp

  136. 136.

    jonas

    January 23, 2017 at 12:00 am

    @Gin & Tonic: This is exactly it. As someone recently pointed out — and it may have been referencing Arendt or someone like that — the point of outlandish propaganda isn’t necessarily to convince people it’s true. It’s to convince people you have the fucking cojones to claim something is true even when it’s obviously not. *That’s* power.

    Trump knows what he’s doing.

  137. 137.

    opiejeanne

    January 23, 2017 at 12:10 am

    @schrodingers_cat: My husband and I are ex-Republicans as is my niece so that’s 3 more you almost know, three more you know of.

  138. 138.

    Debbie1

    January 23, 2017 at 1:33 am

    @Barbara: TPM reported the other day that Maggie Haberman expressed consternation (I won’t call it a complaint) about being left off the new Trump list of media members who were allowed access to the press briefings. Maybe Haberman’s playing stenographer in this Sean Spicer matter is just her way of getting back into their good graces.

  139. 139.

    JustRuss

    January 23, 2017 at 12:16 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Comey was death on a stick and I was not the only asshole here screaming about it in real time.

    Yeah. If there ever is another Democrat in the White House, I’d like to think every discussion about making a bipartisan-y appointment will end with the words “James Comey”.

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