Political Theatre category archive
What Ailes Fox News? 0
Thom suggests that the sexual harassment charges against Roger Ailes, though headline-grabbing, are hardly the worst thing about Fox News.
Heh 0
Juanita Jean notes that Presidents have ad “czars” (that’s a term invented by the press for special advisors) all the way back to Reagan and asks the question:
Why is it that Donald Trump doesn’t have a Czar?
I dunno. Maybe he is gonna have comrades instead.
Still in Search of That Elusive Buck 0
Daniel Ruth considers Donald Trump’s reaction the the failure of Paul Ryan’s “they laughing call it a health care” bill. A snippet:
Despite all the finger-pointing and Trump’s efforts to blame the United Nations, the Brownies, the Peace Corps, Saturday Night Live and Ted Cruz’s father for the failure of the Think of Dead as Just a Chronic Condition Act, the measure was supported by only 17 percent of the public. And that was probably the membership at the Mar-a-Lago Golf Club.
Meanwhile, TPM reports that Republicans are considering trying again, apparently because being against the Affordable Care Act seems to be all they know how to do.
Afterthought:
We have traded the “rule of law” for the “rule of flaw.”
High Nunes (Updated) 0
Keith Olbermann rants about Russia and the Trumplings. The delivery is vintage Olbermann, the facts are what they are.
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
Field has a timeline.
A Diet of Worms 0
Warning: Language.
A Picture Is Worth, the Art of the Con Dept. 0
Dick Polman comments on the notion that you can “run the government like a business”:
I marveled at this naivete for two reasons: Trump was a terrible role model, having been bailed out of six bankruptcies by a dwindling number of indulgent investors; and there’s no historical record of any businessman successfully running America as a business.
The sole career businessman ever elected to the presidency was mining magnate Herbert Hoover. He was touted in 1928 as a problem-solver who’d bring his engineering skills to the public sector. You know what happened next. The stock market crashed, and as the Great Depression deepened, Hoover made things worse because he couldn’t communicate, cajole, compromise, or inspire. He fatally lacked the political skills required of a president.
More Polman at the link.
Image via PoliticalProf.
Misty Water-Colored Memories 0
Click for the original image.
Second Thoughts? 0
I fear not enough persons are having them.
Mythbuster 0
The Rude One marvels at Trump’s fact-free interview with Time Magazine. Here’s a snippet (emphasis added, warning: language):
When someone believes their own mythology, they become parodies of themselves. Trump has never not been that parody, and now, as his supposedly legendary dealmaking ability falls to pieces in the health care bill debacle, he is frantically trying to maintain the illusion of the myth. Without that myth, he’s just a sad old man in an ill-fitting suit who wants to play truck driver.
Stop the Pressers! 0
In The Roanoke Times, history professor Robert A. Strong recounts examples of lies from various Presidential administrations from Eisenhower (denying spy flights over Russia) through Kennedy (denying having Addison’s disease) through Carter (denying planning military action to rescue the hostages in Iran) through Reagan through Clinton and so on. He points out that the lies have generally ranged from national security issues to campaign promises to personal issues, but that they stopped short of denying objective reality that was in public view.
He maintains that Trump’s lies are different in both degree and kind (emphasis added).
In a piece that eerily covers the same ground, Der Spiegel suggests that Trump is more interested in freedom of propaganda than in freedom of the press.
McCurry believes that Trump would like to curtail press freedom. “If he could issue an order that the only coverage allowed of him was positive, he would do so without delay.”
Projecting the Loss 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Stanton Peel returns with another post about Donald Trump; Peele argues that Trump’s reaction to Republicans’ pulling their “they laughingly call it a health care” bill is a classic illustration of psychological projection.
Here’s a bit:
Um, Mr. President? No votes were taken with Democrats present.
Psychological projection is a syndrome in which humans defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.
Donald Trump’s speech on the defeat of the health care bill he supported was a model of projection.
Do please read the rest.
Ryan’s Derp (Updated, Kicked to the Top) 0
It’s not the war.
Afterthought:
Thanks, Obama.
Addendum:
SeattlePI previews the next strategy to make America sick again.
Votes Matter 0
Pandora points out the Trump voters shouldn’t be surprised now that they are getting what they voted for.